Just Planted a Tangerine Tree Outdoors

Question

Hi, I just planted a Robinson tangerine tree in my backyard. It had 10-15 tangerines on it already when I bought it, but they were pretty old (I think) because they were pretty dried out. I just went out to cut the old fruit off when I noticed 20-25 new little fruits already growing. What’s going on here? I think the tree must be like 4-5 years old, and from what I read it is supposed to fruit in Oct-December. It was just transplanted like 3 weeks ago. I didn’t think I’d get fruit till next year, so any thoughts about what this tree is doing? Thanks, Terry

Answer 1

Oddly enough, citrus trees tend to flower then fruit when they are stressed. Thus, they normally fruit during cooler temps, when the cool or cold weather is more stressful to the tree. The stress of being planted caused it to go into early bloom. For the health of the tree, I would remove the new fruit. It needs to focus on growing good roots to become well established and it would not help the tree to also need to focus on developing fruit at this time too.