QuestionQUESTION: I have a miniature orange tree that is days away from being completely dead and it has many oranges on it that it has recently started to drop. Is it possible to grow another tree from these seeds? If so, how do I go about doing this? The oranges the tree has produced are completely healthy and most are matured and ready to eat.
ANSWER: Hi Cale,
Thanx for your question. It is possible to grow another tree from the seed of any of the fruit that are ripe, from your tree. Remove the seed from the fruit and plant one inch deep in a pot of regular potting soil. Keep watered but well-drained. Seedlings will emerge in less than two weeks and need lots of light. I would keep them under a 40-watt shoplight until they are large enough to be transplanted to separate pots and either planted outdoors if your climate allows or planted in a permanent pot to be treated as a houseplant. Bear in mind that your tree is probably a hybrid so the seeds of the fruit will most likely result in a tree and fruit inferior to your plant.
In the future, if you use the Search function, you'll find that this and other questions have been addressed in the past. This could save you time in getting the answers you need.
I hope this helps.
Tom
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: What do you mean by the seeds will result in a tree and fruit inferior to my plant? I also heard that by doing this, my new trees that came from the seeds will be fruitless, is this true?
Thanks!
AnswerHi Cale,
Thanx for the followup. Anytime you try to germinate seeds which are the product of hybridization the results will not be true to type. This is because of the instability involved in the hybrid genetics. I'm not an expert in genetics so I can only explain this in layman's terms. What happens is the genes in the seed will have reverted back to a prior generation due to the instability of the genetics of the hybrid. This is because there are so many factors involved in breeding a certain type of hybrid. Two hybrids won't make an exact copy of each other like open-pollinated plants do. They will result in something that looks like something that was used in the past to make the hybrid. Most likely, in the case of fruit, this will mean an inferior strain or inferior quality such as not as sweet, won't keep as long, not as cold-resistant, not as heat resistant, etc. Secondly, it is very possible that germinating seeds from hybrids could result in a sterile plant that produces no fruit. A sterile plant would have no need to produce fruit because the fruit is just the protective recepticle for the seed. There are exceptions to this such as seedles watermelons and navel oranges. I hope this helps.
Tom
