I have a tangerine tree about 12 years old. It took about 10 years to bear fruit. Each year it increased in production. This spring, shortly after flowering it dropped all its flowers. Any ideas??
Alternate or biennial bearing is a problem common to a number of fruit trees species including citrus. Alternate bearing is the tendency of a fruit tree to produce a heavy crop (on-years) one year followed by a very light crop, or no crop (off-year) the following year. In Florida, alternate bearing is a major problem on some mandarin varieties and also occurs in the production of oranges and grapefruit. The oldest important mandarin variety in Florida is the Dancy Tangerine wich is SUBJECT TO SEVERE CROP ALTERNATION. A number of practices may be employed to control alternate bearing. These include reducing flowering during a heavy on-year, or fruit thinning to reduce crop load during the heavey on-year. This is also a very light year for my Dancy Tangerine tree, after putting on a big crop in 2005. - Millet
