Advice for the Home Gardener from the Help Desk of the Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County
Client;s Request: Hi! Do you know of any small citrus trees that would do well living inside? Thanks!
MGCC's Help Desk Response: Thank you for your inquiry to the Contra Costa Master Gardeners regarding citrus suitable to be grown indoors.
Root stock will determine the overall size of the tree. Because you may need to move the potted plant, select a dwarf citrus, which is often grown on Flying Dragon Trifoliate Orange root stock – a natural dwarf that grows to about 10'-12'. It has a limited root system and must be watered carefully (will not withstand missed waterings or drought). If needed, you can prune the tree to a manageable height and width. Plant in a well-drained potting soil mix in a pot that is at least twice the size of the root ball. You will probably need to re-pot the citrus again later as the tree matures.
The MGCC publication, Citrus for the Home Garden may also be useful to you http://ucanr.edu/blogs/slomggarden/blogfiles/4260.pdf
Citrus varieties commonly available as dwarfs are lemons, limes, kumquats and clementines. The UC ANR publication Tried and True or Something New has a list of common and new citrus varieties for you to consider -http://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8472.pdf
California does have some large citrus specialty nurseries, several of which are located in Northern California. They do offer citrus that can be grown indoors (“house plants”). While some do supply mail-order access, it has been my experience that many of the citruses you might be interested in from these nurseries are also available in retail nurseries and even in some of the big box stores at times. One of the larger wholesale/retail growers also has several pages on the web on growing citrus as “houseplants” that should be of interest to you (e.g., https://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/tips-and-advice/growing-dwarf-citrus/as-houseplants.html). I'm sure other citrus specialty nurseries can supply similar information on their trees, especially dwarf trees.
Good luck with your indoor citrus selection! Please do no hesitate to contact us again if you have more questions.
Help Desk of the Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County (VLT)
Note: The UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog.
Advice from the Help Desk of the
Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County
MGCC Help Desk: Thank you for contacting Master Gardeners help desk with your question about growing sweeter oranges.
The fruits from sweet orange trees in your garden may not taste as sweet as supermarket oranges. Many factors affect the flavor of ripe oranges: the climate, when they are harvested, the variety, pruning, cultural care (e.g., mulching), fertilizing, and irrigation. Without knowing what specific type of orange tree it is, it is difficult to know if you actually have a tree that does produce sweet fruit, but we will assume that it is a sweet orange tree in your yard.
Here are some reasons that the fruit may not be as sweet as you would like it to be along with some possible remedies:
Lack of Heat - The amount of heat the garden receives in summer determines whether or not oranges taste sweet at harvest time. Many orange tree varieties need heat to sweeten their fruits, and if they are grown in an area with a mild climate, you may get oranges that are more sour than sweet. Summer heat builds sugar in the fruits. Navel oranges need a lot of heat to develop their signature sweet flavor.
Harvest Too Early - Letting the oranges stay on the trees longer in winter helps to lower their acid content during the cooler winter temperatures. If oranges are picked without taste testing them first, they may taste too acidic or sour for your liking. Solve that problem by sampling a single orange from the trees for flavor before harvesting the rest because oranges do not sweeten any more once they are picked.
Sour Orange Variety - Your orange tree may not produce sweet oranges. Your tree could be a sour orange tree instead of sweet orange tree. Sour orange tree fruits are grown for their bitter peels, which are used to add orange flavor to recipes. Their flesh is exceptionally sour and acidic. Sour orange peels have a dimpled appearance and a slightly reddish cast. If you don't want to remove a sour orange trees, you could use their fruits to make marmalade or jellies.
Rootstock Takeover - Failing to remove suckers from below the graft on an orange tree encourages growth of the rootstock to the point it takes over the scion and produces flowers and fruits of its own. The fruits from the rootstock are not usually the same flavor as fruits from the scion, depending on the rootstock. Some rootstocks compatible with sweet orange trees include sour orange trees and various lemon trees. If those rootstocks produce fruits, they will have the bitter, sour flavor of a sour orange or lemon instead of the sweetness of a sweet orange. You may be able to tell if the rootstock has taken over by considering the following:
If this tree is grafted (and most orange trees are), and if it was grafted on dwarfing or semi-dwarfing rootstock, they are frequently grafted to trifoliate rootstock, so that can make the diagnosis much easier. If you see any leaves in groupings of 3, it is likely that it is rootstock, as orange leaves are singly produced on a branch. Also, the leave size and shape will be different and the stems may have large thorns. If the rootstock has taken over, you can attempt to prune the rootstock off if there is anything left of the original grafted tree. |
Fertilizing: Citrus do require adequate and regular fertilization to maintain their growth and satisfactory fruit production. Here is a UC link to additional information on citrus fertilization for the home garden: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/GARDEN/FRUIT/CULTURAL/citfertilization.html
Citrus Culture in Contra Costa County: Finally, in summary of the above, here is a link to an excellent overall MG article about care of citrus in our area. This article will help you to make sure that you are using the right fertilizer and giving the tree the right amount of moisture for optimum quality fruit production in additional to other helpful suggestions for citrus success: http://ucanr.edu/blogs/slomggarden/blogfiles/4260.pdf
Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.
Help Desk of the Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County
Note: The Master Gardeners of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/
Help and Advice from the Contra Costa Master Gardener Help Desk
Client's Request/Question:
I'd like to increase the varieties on my existing citrus trees. I understand that I can do that by either budding or grafting. Can you help me find some guidance on how to do budding and grafting?
CCMG Help Desk Response
Thank you for calling the Master Gardener help desk this morning.
I found an excellent and free UC publication about budding and grafting citrus (and avocado). "Budding and Grafting Citrus and Avocado in the Home Garden" Here is the link to it: http://homeorchard.ucdavis.edu/8001.pdf.
There are also several videos available from various agricultural universities (Texas and Florida). A list of some that are available can be found on YouTube (click). We strongly suggest that you give first priority to the agriculture or horticultural institutions web sites (*.edu).
Bay Area wise, I also found a Santa Clara Master Gardener article about his year-round citrus in San Jose at https://www.mastergardeners.org/picks/citrus.html that you might find interesting and give you some ideas on his success with particular varieties. California Rare Fruit Growers (crfg.org) could also be of interest, especially their scion exchange, usually in January.
IMPORTANT: I would also call to your attention that California is experiencing an invasion of a pest (Asian Citrus Psyllid) that carries the deadly bacteria “huanglongbing" (HLB), a devastating and fatal disease for citrus. There are currently citrus quarantine areas to the east and south of Contra Costa County. It is VERY important that you do not import citrus bud wood from any quarantine area and with caution from anywhere else (e.g. remainder of California, Florida, Texas, Arizona, etc.). More information and a map of the state quarantine areas can found here. One of the suspected causes of the early spread of HLB is backyard gardeners budding and/or grafting of citrus as well as some commercial nurseries moving infested nursery stock. Commercial California citrus nurseries have now taken very stringent steps to certify that their nursery stock is disease free.
Hope the above helps in your project. Please contact us again if you have more questions.
Good luck with your "new" citrus!
Contra Costa Master Gardeners Help Desk
Note: The Contra Costa Master Gardener Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/
Advice for the Home Gardener from the Contra Costa Master Gardener Help Desk
Client's Question:
Response from the CCMG Help Desk:
Thank you for your call this morning about your navel orange tree. Fruit should be harvested when it has developed full color and, most importantly, full flavor. Citrus turn color in fall when they are exposed to cold temperatures, but this does not affect the fruit sweetness. Navel oranges may not be ready to harvest until the late winter, and Valencia oranges are usually mature in the summer.
The best place to store the fruit is on the tree. Once you pick the fruit, it does not increase in sweetness or ripen more fully. Unfortunately, freezing temperatures don't care if your oranges are ripe or not! However, if you do pick the fruit, it will keep for about 4 to 6 weeks under refrigeration. (Note: Commercial orange growers basically use the orchard's trees as their warehouse making multiple pickings as they ripen. If a freeze is predicted, growers will usually pick all the oranges and sell them for juice).
For even further information on protecting citrus in the winter, I would recommend two publications "Frost Protection for Citrus and Other Sub-Tropicals" (http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8100.pdf) and “Citrus for the Home Garden in Contra Costa County”.(http://ucanr.edu/blogs/slomggarden/blogfiles/4260.pdf).
Please contact us again if you have more questions.
Contra Costa Master Gardeners Help Desk
Note: The Contra Costa Master Gardener Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/
Advice for the Home Gardener from the Contra Costa Master Gardeners Help Desk
Description of the client's problem:
Advice From the CCMG's Help Desk:
The pest that is causing the new leaf growth on your citrus trees to curl is most likely the Citrus Leaf Miner. The adult stage is a very small moth, which lays eggs on young citrus leaves. When the larvae emerge from the eggs a week or so later, they bore into the leaves and begin feeding, leaving minute trails observable on the surface of the leaves. As the larvae grow, the trails become more pronounced and noticeable.
After feeding for two to three weeks inside the leaf tissue, the larva emerges and enters a pupal stage. At this point, the leaf curls over the pupa to protect it. The pupal stage lasts from one to three weeks. Because the life cycle moves so quickly (between three and seven weeks, depending on the ambient temperatures), multiple generations of the pest can develop in warm weather.
You can see photos of the leaf miner moth and the damage it causes at this website: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74137.html. This website also contains information about management of this pest.
Since the leaf miner pest typically attacks only the new leaf growth regardless of the age of the tree, there are some cultural strategies that you can use to reduce the prevalence of the new growth, such as limiting pruning to once a year (pruning encourages new growth), going easy on fertilizing, and not over-watering. Past experience with this leaf miner indicates that we might see a year or two of damaged trees as it has only just arrived in our area, but as the natural enemies develop, it should be less of a problem. Use of pesticides is not recommended at this time and in most instances would be ineffective because the miner is inside the leaf and it may kill off beneficial insects.
Hopefully this information answers your question and will help you managing this pest. Please do not hesitate to contact us again if you have questions.
Contra Costa Master Gardeners Help Desk
Note: The Contra Costa Master Gardener Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/
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