I live in Golden Valley Arizona. I planted orange trees from seeds. These oranges were from a relatives orange trees in Granada Hills Calif. My orange trees are 17 years old & beautiful. They have never flowered & never had fruit. Why ? ? ? I read a article that they do not need a pollinator so whats wrong ?
Likely because they need to be grafted with fruiting stock, as the seed to tree will likely be infertile or incapable of fruiting, see citrus forums... there are a few experts that will better guide you.
From what I've read orange trees from seed take from 10-15 years to reach maturity and that pruning would add to the delay. Since you described the tree as "beautiful" I assume it has been fertilized on a regular basis.
From what I have read, the chance of the seed being infertile is relatively small, and the chances are it will give you flowers and fruit when treated correctly. That means good sun, good watering technique and the right kind of food. And, as stated, minimal pruning. Do you feed the trees regularly?
Thanks for responding to my question. The orange trees get plenty of sun, fed, & watered. I have planted over 400 shade & fruit trees from seeds when I came to Arizona 22 years ago. I carved a beautiful oasis out here. Some of my trees are to the power poles. My other fruit trees have fruit, apricot, plum, peach, fig, & etc. I was wondering this is high desert 2,800 ft. Every year I get a snow, which only lasts a few hours during the day or if in the evening then all night. Sometimes a few of the leaves get what I call burnt, turn yellow if the snow stays on them too long. Then in the Spring those leaves fall off & new ones come out. So I was wondering if maybe the snow messes them up. What do you think ?
Every citrus grown from seed are fertile trees. All that any citrus tree grown from seed needs, in order to begin blooming and fruiting, is for the tree to produce enough vegetative growth to finally reach the node count number that is required for maturity. Once the required node count is reached, your orange will begin to bloom. Citrus produce blooms and fruit only on the new growth, but only after the required node count is achieved. If the new growth is killed back most winters, than your orange tree has lost all of the nodes produced in the preceding spring, and so must start all over again the following spring to produce new growth in its effort to finally reach the required number of nodes in order to become a mature tree. Therefore, the snow is either stopping the tree's advancement toward reaching the required growth (maturity node number), or is slowing the process, thus requiring a longer period of time until the tree's maturity is reached. Under normal warm whether circumstances a seedling orange will reach maturity in approximately 15 years. For the same reasons written above, you should NEVER prune a seedling citrus tree if you desire the tree to produce fruit. - Millet (1,354-)
Thanks, for your help. I gues the snow has set the orange trees back, & I topped them 2 years ago. I almost forgot 3 years ago we got a pretty good snow & it lasted 3 days on the ground & 1 full day on the trees. All of the leaves on the orange trees fell off that time & my date palms turned brown. Trimmed the date palms all up & they looked like a pineapple. In the summer the orange trees all got new leaves again & the palms date & fan pulled out of it. I thought that time I was going to loose them. I won't trim them anymore & see what happens. I think the snow must set them back each winter. The trees are beautiful, big, & very full. I have cumquat bushes that have little oranges on them each year. I bought the first one, then planted the others from seeds.
If you can...and want to plant more cold hardy citrus, try Meyer Lemon, for starters... they can survive way up north on the BC coast if given winter protection... ask Millet for the variety best suited to your climate, as I believe that she/he is a commercial citrus grower. Your cutting back is one answered question as to why no fruit occured last year... but the winter temps. must also be a factor....borderline citrus area?
