I started 2 Satsuma tree's from seeds. Both have been planted in the ground and one is doing good and the other not so much. The one that seems to be doing well has very large thorns throughout the entire tree. They are about 6 years old and have never had blooms of any sort. is there something wrong with the tree or is it just to early to expect anything out of it

Thanks

Hi Dannie, welcome to garden.org.

Yes, some citrus are very thorny. If you have the patience you can clip off the thorns that are in your way.

Most citrus are grafted onto a sour orange root stock. I'm not sure you'll get a Satsuma from the seeds of a Satsuma orange, necessarily. But in any case it does usually take between 4 and 6 years for a tiny plant to grow to fruiting size. Hate to say it but to be sure of getting the oranges you want, within your lifetime you really should probably go to a nursery and buy a small grafted tree.

Here in Florida we're advising people against planting any citrus trees of any kind until the Citrus Greening disease epidemic is under control. The UF boffins have hopefully found a silver bullet for it, but it's not for sure yet. You should find out from your County Extension service if there is Citrus Greening disease in your county.

Dannie, to NGA!

Satsuma Mandarins are amoung the oldest varieties of citrus - they have been grown for over 700 years. So, the parentage is up to debate. Anytime you grow a plant from seed, you will get a lot of variability in the resulting plants but Satsuma should be pretty consistent after all these years.

I suspect its just not old enough yet. Satsuma often have thorns and winged leaves while immature but they disappear with age. Usually, when the thorns and winged leaves disappear, the tree is old enough to bloom but there are a lot of varieties of Satsuma and some take 3 years and some take 20 to bear fruit.

Daisy

I planted two satsuma trees 6 years ago and the fruit that I get is 3 to 4 inches in diameter and not very sweet or juicy My neighbor has two trees and the fruit is 2 inches in diameter and they are very juicy and sweet. What ids the problem

Your Satsuma is a different variety than your neighbors.

I don't believe Satsumas ever have thorns. It will be interesting to discover what exactly you have grown!

You might also be giving your tree different care and feeding than your neighbors which would account for both the difference in size and flavor. Ask them what they do for their tree.

How old is your tree? Are you growing it anywhere near Florida? If you are, you might have Citrus Greening disease problems with your tree that your neighbor's doesn't have yet.

What do the leaves look like? You could have inadvertenly saved the wrong branches from a grafted tree.

But as there are at least 100 Satsuma varieties, you may have a less (to you) desirable Satsuma variety.

The questioner said they were grown from seed which is always a bit of a gamble.

porkpal said:The questioner said they were grown from seed which is always a bit of a gamble.

Thanks for pointing that out. But if the trees are from seed and have thorns but never bloomed, where did the fruit come from?

Trees from seed have thorns until they are mature enough to bloom, then the thorns disappear. If a seedling is vigorous, it has more of a chance of being the parent tree. A less vigorous seedling may be a throw back to some parentage. It may take anywhere from 7 to 20 years to be mature enough to bear fruit.

Oh, I see... two posters...

To Lesters6: Your tree is a different variety than your neighbors tree or you cut off the grafted branches or...

Please post photos of the entire tree and photos of leaves.

Dannie said:I started 2 Satsuma tree's from seeds. Both have been planted in the ground and one is doing good and the other not so much. The one that seems to be doing well has very large thorns throughout the entire tree. They are about 6 years old and have never had blooms of any sort. is there something wrong with the tree or is it just to early to expect anything out of it

Thanks

You will not get good fruit from a tree grown from a seed. Good fruit grows on a grafted rootstock. So if your tree is from seeds there no good. You'll need to buy a tree from a nursery .

Hi @Tims and

The original poster that you quoted only posted here one time 2-1/2 years ago in May 2016 so will most likely never see your post.