Hi all, I have two orange trees that both finally produced oranges this year. One of them did awesome and the oranges were perfect! However, the other one produced a lot of oranges but every single one of them split open on the very bottom and turned black! I know I didn't try to pick them too late and both trees got the exact same type of care. Does anyone know what happened? Or how I can prevent this from happening next year? Thanks in advance for all of your help.
Originally posted by christa7032: Hi all, single one of them split open on the very bottom and turned black! I know I didn't try to pick them too late and both trees got the exact same type of care. Does anyone know what happened? Or how I can prevent this from happening next year? Thanks in advance for all of your help.
.. My Washington navel orange does that whenever it rains too much, or when I water it too much.
By any chance did it look like one fruit was growing out the bottom of another where it was split? The 'Navel' is an immature 2nd fruit on the bottom of the orange that helps the big fruit keep from becomming full of seeds. I've seen the 'navel'in the navel orange get huge, ugly and ruin the fruit. I have never had all the navel oranges split open like you have.
We get lots of rain here in Florida in the summer, but we have sand for soil. It drains quickly and I have never had citrus split open like that. Now my tomatoes...that's another story!
Posts: 174 | Location: Sanford, Florida. zone 9B | Registered: May 22, 2007
A couple of them had a little ball at the bottom but for the most part they didn't. Now all of the leaves are dropping off of the tree with the problem. I think it is getting too much water so I have cut it back and will see how that goes.
I have no idea what my sunset zone is. How would I find out? I know these orange trees do well here because I am surrounded by huge orange groves. Hopefully the tree will do better now that I have cut back on some of the water.
