The Fruit Trees Book: Growing Orange & Citrus Trees - Blood Oranges, Navel, Valencia, Clementine, Cara And More

DIY Planting, Irrigation, Fertilizing, Pest Prevention, Leaf Sampling & Soil Analysis

Vas Blagodarskiy

• Publisher: Vas Blagodarskiy
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781949727050
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Horticulture
• Index: Biological Sciences

When you want to enjoy the taste of a fresh citrus fruit, whether it is squeezing your own orange juice, or adding a dash of lemon to your favorite dish, you probably run off to the produce aisle and pick something that looks like the best of the bunch. You don't stop to wonder if the fruit was sprayed with preservatives and pest sprays, or if it's not as fresh as the label would have you believe. You probably don't know that some citrus fruits are dyed to give them that deep, beautiful coloration. Not to mention, the number of hands that touch it before it gets to your table. "If it looks good, it must be good." What if I told you that you can grow citrus trees in your own backyard or even start a small balcony orchard, and that it's not as complicated as you would think? All you need is soil, plants, commitment, and a guide book to show you the way. Well, this is that guide book! With a little know how, you can grow your citrus trees just about anywhere, even indoors. This guide will help you through the critical stages in your tree's development and have you harvesting your own fruits in the blink of an eye. Once you have mastered growing one type of citrus fruit, you'll see that they all are quite similar to grow. Later in this book, you will learn the technical side of growing your own citrus trees at home, including the layout of the orchard, climate requirements, irrigation techniques, leaf sampling, planting tips, and more to help your citrus tree survive and thrive for many years of fresh, homegrown citrus fruits.

Planting Your Citrus Trees: How To Dig for A Long-Term Happy Tree

Citrus trees are tropical and subtropical, and generally prefer to be in warmer climates. They will grow best in locations and climate zones with milder winters that stay well above freezing throughout the season, with very few extreme frosts. Citrus trees do need the cooler temperatures and shorter days of a winter season to keep them happy and productive. This is the time that the tree becomes dormant. The average temperature of a winter should stay in the 55-degree range for the best chance of a good fruit yield in the following harvest season. Navel oranges are especially at risk for small yields if the winter months are not cool enough.

Planting Tips

• Before planting your citrus tree, make a mixture of soil and 2 spadesful of kraal manure or compost. Add 250g of superphosphate.
• Make sure your new trees are transplanted to approximately the same depth that they planted in the nursery to avoid shock.
• Keep the bud union about a foot above the soil level.
• Tamp the soil firmly around the tree.
• Create an irrigation basin that is slightly larger than the tree itself.
• Water your new tree immediately on planting, and again the next day to ensure the soil is packed around the root system.

Encourage Strong Root Systems with Proper Irrigation

The roots are your citrus tree’s nerve center, so encouraging them to grow strong is vital. In a healthy tree, the root system can grow to three feet in depth and six feet or more in width. Your tree’s root growth can be restricted if there are soil layers that are heavy with clays and sand, or that are rocky and exceptionally gravel filled. If these layers are affecting the first three feet of the soil, the roots cannot grow down. The roots will then be bound by the confines of the heavy soil or rock layers, and unable to absorb enough key nutrients and water from the ground.

Whenever possible, dig past any rocky, constrictive soil to give the roots their best chance at spreading out.

Citrus trees do not thrive if they are planted in soil that is prone to being oversaturated. The signs of soil that provides a good balance of drainage and moisture retention is soil that has a clay content of no more than 10% to 40%, appears to be reddish, brownish or yellowish brown in color, and has no constrictive clay or mottled appearances below three feet in depth. These soils will absorb water and, in turn, pass the water on to the roots.

If a soil is prone to being waterlogged or oversaturated, it will block your citrus tree’s roots from absorbing water efficiently. Soils that have restrictive layers or that will be problematic for the tree’s root system will have:

• A Grey or yellowish-grey color

• A block, columnar, or prismatic structure

• Abundant yellow-brown or reddish-brown mottles

• Rock layers that appear stratified

• Both Soft and hardened mottles (concretions)

• A heavy clay texture

Watering your Citrus Trees

Newly planted trees should be watered at least twice per week until maturity, then a routine maintenance watering can be one time per week. As thee tree continues to grow, dig out its irrigation basin so that it continues to be larger than the tree’s driplines. When digging, be very careful to avoid smaller feeder roots that are close to the surface of the soil.

The exact amount of watering the citrus tree requires will depend mostly on your climate, or the conditions during the growing season. If the soil is not well drained, the roots will become overly saturated which encourages root rot and will cause the tree to sicken and possibly die.

It is important to find the right balance of water for your citrus tree; too little water, especially in the late fall to early winter months will result in a harvest of fruit that tastes very acidic. If the lack of moisture occurs in the spring it will affect the blossoms and the fruitlets, resulting in a small yield. IF the tree was subjected to drought and then excessive rainfalls, the tree could blossom out of season and affect the setting of the fruit, resulting in smaller yields off season, and fruit that tastes “off.”

A citrus tree can be suffering from water stress and not show any signs until its leaves begin to wilt and droop. By the time the leaves show signs, the tree is already distressed; don’t wait for obvious signs of water stress. For mature trees, water up to 30 millimeters of water every week.

For larger scale citrus tree orchards, concrete canals and pipelines will provide irrigation. Most smaller scale operations will use a basin system and a dragline sprinkler system for irrigation of the orchard.

If a sprinkler system is used for irrigation, the trees will benefit from being aligned in a square shape; if not, the orchard is best lined up in a rectangular layout so that the most trees can be planted on each acre.

Laboratory Testing to Judge the Health of Your Citrus Trees

There are a few tests that can be routinely run in laboratories to make sure your citrus trees are growing healthy and strong. Only healthy trees will produce good fruits, so these tests are important in caring for your citrus trees.

Leaf sampling is the most accurate way to judge the health of your citrus trees. You can send leaves to the laboratory for testing annually using these guidelines:

• Valencia and midseason citrus: Mid-April
• Easy peelers: Towards the end of February
• Grapefruits and Navel orange t...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Orange Trees
• Blood Oranges
• Harvesting Your Oranges
• Special Considerations for Container Gardening
• Common Container Planting Mistakes
• Planting Your Citrus Trees
• Pruning Your Citrus Tree
• Common Pests of Citrus Trees
• Common Diseases
• A Parting Word