Hello to everyone in this great community of @agriculturalmindset. I hope we are all doing well. Today is another good day.
Today,I have decided to broaden our knowledge on the orange tree and the orange fruit. Orange fruit belongs to the citrus family and it is also a succulent fruit.
Methods of Propagation and Planting Materials
Planting Materials are the seeds,budded seedlings, grafted seedlings.
Orange can be propagated by seeds, budding and even grafting. We call the propagation by seed sexual propagation due to the use of seeds while the others do not use seeds, rather they use the orange plant parts.
Climatic Requirements
Orange requires a higher elevated and sloping area with good soil. It flourishes with a temperature from the normal room temperature (23 degrees Celsius) to 35 degrees Celsius and a reasonable rainfall of range 75 to 150 cm per annum.
Cultural Practices
The orange plant should also be made free of weed. Mulching could also help the plant to maintain water, nutrients lost due to denitrification,and keep away some crawling pests too.
Pests and Diseases of Orange
The different pests are the fruit borrowers (affect orange fruit),red mites(affect the fruit and leaves),caterpillars(affect the leaves), aphids ( affect fruit), scale insects(release chemicals on plant and others.
These pests cause several diseases to the orange plant such as Tristeza which is caused by aphids, Citrus scab and others.
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Maturity period, Harvesting and Storage
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Orange plants can take three to seven years after being planted to grow, mature and start yielding fruits.
After maturity and fruiting,the fruits could be harvested by normal spot picking when they fall and could also be carefully harvested using a harvesting knife.
Orange is often stored in baskets to keep them ventilated and moisture free. They could also be processed into fruit juice and sold by farmers for income.
Before I conclude, orange pants could also be raised in nurseries around October to December and transplanted around April to May when there is enough rainfall.
I hope you have learned more about the orange plant and if you are planning on growing an orange plant or you have the plants already, you must have learned how to check on the plant to obtain maximum yield.
Thanks for reading my post and I must acknowledge @mattsanthonyit and @tipu for their unending support and always checking up on my work.
Love you all.