I sprouted a little orange tree from a seed and planted it a large styrofoam coffee cup with "supersoil" potting mix. It has grown with 3 or 4 shoots, the longest is about 9 inches but doesn't do well in direct sunshine.
It seems content in my kitchen window with indirect sunshine, but if I take it outside in direct sunshine, 1 or 2 of the shoots will turn brown and die in a couple days.
I'm wondering if it needs some special fertilizer, or more water, or a larger pot, or less sunshine?
What are the recommended conditions for small orange trees?
Citrus requires fast-draining soil. Be sure your cup has a hole in the bottom to allow excess water to drain away.
Also, citrus is sensitive to too much sun on the trunk of the tree. In your case, this is the skin of the shoots. Commercial orchards often paint the trunks of their trees with whitewash.
Move the seedling to a flower pot about 6 to 10 inches in diameter. Make your own potting mix per my recipe at . Keep the mix moist but never really wet.
After the seedling is established in its new container, feed it VERY LIGHTLY but frequently with an acidic fertilizer (e.g., commercial citrus food, ammonium sulfate). Occasionally add iron and zinc sulfate. Over-feeding or feeding when the potting mix is dry will burn the roots and kill the plant. A teaspoon of ammonium sulfate once a month should be enough in a 10 inch pot.
Eventually, you will have to move the plant to a much larger container or even into the ground. It will grow into a tree that can be 15-20 feet tall and equally wide. Also, it might not bear fruit of the same quality as the source of the seed. Citrus (and most fruits) from seed do not yield the same variety as the parents. Even if the fruit is not very good, however, the tree will be aesthetically pleasing: evergreen, with sweet-smelling blossoms in the spring, and nice-looking fruit in the fall.
Citrus seeds are odd. They are often polyembryonic, i.e. contain more than one plant embryo, and all but one (or all) of the embryos are formed by (IIRC) somatic embryogenesis, and are clones of the parent. So with an orange seed you're more likely to get a plant like its parent than with most other fruit trees.
Good question. Just water enough to moisten the non-woody absorbing roots. Over watering can cause woody root rot or decay. If you do fertilize (add essential elements) with a fertilizer containing Nitrogen, cut the recommended amount (dose) at least 1/4. Over fertilizing with nitrogen can also cause many problems. To better understand fertilizing you must learn a little chemistry. Here are two articles on chemistry.
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Sincerely, John A. Keslick, Jr. Arborist
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Beware of so-called tree experts who do not understand tree biology. Storms, fires, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions keep reminding us that we are not the boss.
We do not feed trees. We can add essential elements. Trees manufacture their own food.
Also I know of no data to support that tree wrap or painting the truck do what they claim it does. I welcome the research.
The tree painting history is this. There was a day when women were in charge of all the chores within the house. The men were in charge of everything outdoors. There was two rules. 1. If it moves grease it. They greased the gate, the greased the garage door. #2. If it did not move it got pained white. The fence, the rocks and the trees. That's the history of painting trees. Also trees do move. They do not move in the sense that they run from danger or move from danger. However they constantly move in place. That is why we recommend using a device like this for staking young trees as not to injure or hurt the tree when it sways. Compasrde to my competition, the torture of wire in a hose..
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John A. Keslick, Jr. Arborist
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Beware of so-called tree experts who do not understand tree biology. Storms, fires, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions keep reminding us that we are not the boss.
problem is that when we promote the idea that we feed trees people tend to think more is better as if fertilizer like nitrogen was food. The result is very common - over fertilizing.
Autotrophs make their own food. Heterotrophs have to have it made for them.
Trees are autotrophs and animals, humans are heterotrophs.
There are exceptions like the Ghost Flower which has no chlorophyll. This plant must get its food - carbohydrates from other plants by way of the bicarbohydrate transfer of plants.
Sincerely, John A. Keslick, Jr. Arborist
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Beware of so-called tree experts who do not understand tree biology. Storms, fires, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions keep reminding us that we are not the boss.
Hi John Keslick, I have a Japanese Maple that had storm damage several years ago. It is about 6 - 7' tall, 16 years old, and is beautiful, However where the branch was broken off there is a hole. What do I do now? is there any hope that this tree will not rot inside and die?? Thank you for any help you can give me. Nanzi
But -- the parent tree is the rootstock, not the grafted section from which the fruit came. So what will probably happen is that you'll get a wild sour orange or sour lemon tree to grow from an orange seed, not a quality fruit tree.
In my case, several new trees sprouted in the grove, from seeds left behind by birds or from fruit that dropped that I didn't immediately clean up. Now that these new trees are well established, I'm grafting cuttings from some of my other citrus to see if I can't create a new grapefruit, mandarin orange, or pomelo tree. I'll let you know in five years or so how they came out. -- Regards --
As Hinsley indicated, the rootstock is NOT the parent. The parent is the part of the tree that produced the fruit containing seeds. If you graft known varieties onto seedling rootstocks, you will get more of the known varieties, not new varieties.
Since citrus is apomictic (capable of forming viable seeds without pollination), it's quite possible that seedling citrus will be "true to form". That is, the seedlings will indeed be the same variety as the parent that produced the seeds.
However, apomixis does not preclude seeds also being formed from pollination. Thus, each seed is a guess. If you really want to create a new citrus variety, you must thus carefully ensure that there is indeed pollination.
I've learned something here -- I'd always understood that planting the seed from a particular type of citrus would not result in a new tree of the same type. IOW, planting a Valencia seed would not result in a new Valencia. I googled "citrus" and "nucellar embryony" and understand Ross's comment "each seed is a guess".. I'd missed FW's comment, "you are probably unlikely to get an orange tree like the orange your seed came from but let us know how it works out."
Actually, in another location I did plant a seed from a Pomelo, and after 6 years got a new tree that also produced pomelos. At that time I attributed this to the fact that the parent was an ungrafted Thai pomelo tree. I moved too soon to really learn what quality fruit were being produced.
You could also plant lots of seeds, and only keep the ones where you got more than one sprout per seed -- and carefully separate them. That should guarantee you that some of the seedlings are asexual clones of the parent variety.
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