Orange tree- citrus evergreen perennial family rue, grown in subtropical climates and does not tolerate freezing temperatures. The growth of an orange tree in warm climates continues constantly, the plant is medium-sized, can grow up to 7 m in height with open cultivation... There are also undersized varieties up to 3 m. Thermophilicity and low demand for conditions allows you to successfully grow oranges at home. Orange tree at home at good care will be able to bear fruit and reach a decent size.
Many domesticated, specially bred orange varieties can bear fruit all year round and have a minimum crown size. These varieties (for example: Washington Navel, Korolek, Gamlin) allow you to get a small harvest of oranges at home on a regular basis. And three to four plants can create the feeling of a citrus garden in the room.
Planting an orange at home.
Orange trees are propagated in two ways: cuttings and seeds. Both methods have their pros and cons. At first planting material need to be found somewhere. With seeds, everything is simple - we go to the store and choose the first fruit we like. As with growing avocados at home, the orange fruit should be ripe, have a uniform orange... Almost all orange fruits contain seeds suitable for germination. You need to get the cuttings somewhere: ask a friend who already owns a homemade orange, you can buy a ready-made grown seedling in the store, or, for example, bring a cutting from a vacation from the subtropics by cutting a sprig of an orange growing in open ground.
A seed-planted orange is a stronger plant. It will grow better and adapt to new conditions, more unpretentious to diseases, the tree will acquire a beautiful crown, which cannot be said about plants planted by cuttings. However, it should be borne in mind that an orange grown from a seed will have slightly different biological characteristics than its parent. Planting by cuttings provides for 100% transfer of the genetic material of the parent tree. And the last thing that can affect the choice of how to plant an orange at home is the beginning of fruiting. A tree from a seed will begin to bloom and bear fruit with sufficient care at the age of 8-10 years, the cuttings method of propagation reduces this period in half.
Growing an orange tree from seed.
Take well-formed seeds from the orange fruit. Use several pieces from different fruits to guarantee, so as not to sow only unpolished or unripe seeds. Plant immediately after removing the seeds, in small pots, or long boxes at intervals of 5 cm from each other and 3 cm from the walls. Use a mixture of peat and flower land in a 1: 1 ratio, with good drainage.
Deepen the seeds by 1 cm and maintain constant soil moisture, avoiding overflow. Optimum temperature for germination 18-22 deg. Homemade orange sprouts will appear in about 2 weeks. From the hatched oranges, choose the strongest, most powerful, with correct leaves... Grow up under a small glass jar- to create a microclimate. Place the pots in a bright place, but out of direct sunlight. Remove the can for half an hour once a day to refresh the atmosphere around the orange.
After the appearance of two true leaves, transplant healthy specimens into separate pots, 10 cm in diameter, lay out good drainage... When transplanting, try to keep the roots and the peat mixture intact around them. For soil, use a substrate of humus and flower soil. In this pot, the orange should grow up to 15-20 cm, then the next transplant will be needed.
Reproduction of the orange tree by cuttings.
For cuttings, choose stems with a diameter of 4-5 mm and a length of about 10 cm. The cut should be carried out under the bud from below, and above the bud from above. On the handle, you need to leave 3-4 living buds and 2-3 leaves. For greater effect, the stalk should be treated with a root growth stimulant, and placed 1/2 of the length in water for 3 days. For rooting cuttings homemade orange plant them in boxes or pots of soil consisting of a mixture of humus, coarse sand, and flower soil in equal proportions. Plant the cuttings in a compacted substrate to a depth of 3x-4x cm. Initially, the branch has no roots, this does not allow the plant to receive enough moisture from the soil, so the orange tree requires daily spraying of the leaves with water. The soil should be well moistened, but avoid acidification. The optimum temperature for rooting is 20-25 degrees. Final rooting takes place in 30-45 days. The homemade orange tree can then be transplanted into a separate small pot.
Growing conditions and care for homemade orange.
To grow an orange tree at home, soil that has a good supply of nutrients should be used. For these purposes, a flower mixture is suitable, which can be purchased in stores, or soil from your suburban area treated with boiling water and enriched with humus. Be sure to lay out expanded clay drainage at the bottom of the dishes or charcoal... When watering, do not allow stagnation of water and rotting of the soil. In this case, you need to ensure that the entire earthen lump is moistened, otherwise the tree will begin to lose roots and hurt. Watering is required approximately twice a week. The soil must be allowed to completely saturate with moisture, and then it must dry out. When the soil becomes acidic, it must be replaced. The recommended container for growing an orange is a clay pot. It is quite moisture permeable and this property helps to regulate soil moisture, clay absorbs and evaporates excess water through the outer surface.
Orange loves light, so a grown tree needs direct sunlight but no more than 2 hours a day. The orange at home does not like rearrangement in a new place, so you need to find from the very beginning permanent place for home tree in the south bright room... To form a beautiful crown, you can turn the orange pot, but every day at a small angle so that the plant has time to turn around. Each year, as it grows in size, the homemade orange needs to be transplanted into a larger pot. New dishes should be slightly larger than the previous ones by 3-4 cm in diameter. When transplanting, an earthen lump with roots should be removed with minimal damage and moved to a larger pot, and the difference should be filled with fresh soil. A pot of 8-10 liters in volume can be left as a permanent one, and the transplants can be replaced with dressings, while you need to update at least twice a year upper layer soil.
Comfortable temperature for growing an orange: 17-28 degrees. Orange, like any houseplants, does not tolerate drafts. Homemade orange needs to be sprayed with water several times a week to maintain optimum humidity... V heating season daily spraying is necessary.
For an aesthetic look orange at home it is necessary to take an active part in the formation of the crown. In the first year of life, the tree releases a single shoot up to 30 cm high. In the second year, before the start of active growth - in the spring, you need to cut off the top of the shoot with pruning shears or scissors, leaving only about 20 cm.This will force the tree to release lateral buds. Next, remove the lower buds, leaving only the 3 upper ones. They should form the skeletal main branches of the crown of a homemade orange. On next year do similar manipulations with the side branches of the second order, stimulating branching. Often, cutting off the central orange shoot does not give the desired result, the tree releases a single new sprout from above, then you need to cut the shoot again together with the upper bud, and if the length allows, then with the second one. An orange tree takes on a pretty look when the branches develop up to level 5-6. In the future, it will be enough to cut off individual fast growing shoots, or remove them altogether.
With careful care, a home-grown orange will bloom in a few years. Move pollen to form ovaries cotton swab from the anther to the sticky stamen. If a lot of fruits are formed, then some will need to be removed, otherwise the tree may die from exhaustion. For normal growth, one fruit should be matched to 10-15 leaves. Try growing your homemade decorative Pink Banana from seeds and fruiting.
Tell your friends about it.
Growing an orange tree at home is not easy. An inexperienced gardener is unlikely to cope with this task, especially if he sets himself the goal of getting a fruiting plant. However, with some effort and consideration of the recommendations in this article, it is quite possible to succeed. If you have never "taken" citrus fruits into your home before, try using a purchased orange tree first. If the experiment succeeds, you can start trying to enrich your garden with a plant grown from a stone.
What kind of orange is grown in the house
Of the citrus fruits intended specifically for indoor cultivation, three are especially popular:
- Pavlovsky orange. It is not high - a meter maximum. Quite fruitful, additional specimens can be obtained by ordinary cuttings. However, the fruits ripen for a long time, up to nine months, during which the tree requires increased attention and careful care.
- Gamlin. It will be taller - it grows up to one and a half meters. Fruits are juicy, sweet-sour, few seeds. The harvest should be expected late in the fall.
- Washington Navel. The most favorite orange tree among home gardeners. Can grow up to two meters; below one adult plant can not be. An additional bonus - it smells charming during flowering, the hair can bear fruit from the age of three. The fruits are quite large, up to a third of a kilogram.
It is advised not to buy a fruiting orange tree: when changing residence, it may refuse to bear fruit for a couple of years. Let it already agree to "feed" you when it takes root.
How to choose the right place
In order for a homemade orange tree to agree to stay with you, you must first put it in a place that fully meets the needs of the plant. You need light - abundant, but not too bright. The east and south sides are suitable if the tree is not close to the window. You can determine the desired distance by the state of the leaves. If the leaves begin to stretch and corrugate, they must be moved closer, without waiting for falling off. If they start to turn yellow, they should be moved a little further (although this rarely happens). An additional concern should be to periodically rotate the pot so that the orange tree is exposed to the light from different sides, and the crown is formed harmoniously. And in the summer it would be nice to take it out into the garden or on the balcony.
Temperature
You also need to be careful about heat. If the temperature drops below 5 degrees, the orange tree may die. At high (25 and above), it will begin to grow actively, but it will not even think of bearing fruit. It is desirable to keep it in the 15-18 degrees range. If ovaries have already appeared, vigilance can be weakened, just to prevent drying out. The southern tree will cope on its own.
Gentle watering
In principle, the orange tree (photo) loves water. So in the heat, you need to water and spray it daily. Water for these purposes should not only be settled, but also warm. However, it is not recommended to heat it. It is better to put it next to the pot ahead of time so that it is at the air temperature at the time of watering. In case of cold snaps and in winter, spraying stops, and watering is done in a day or two. With the volume of water like this: let it be less than more. The leaves twisted from water starvation will straighten afterwards, but the roots rotted from stagnant water cannot be saved.
Beautiful crown not only for aesthetics
Since you have already figured out the basic rules of how to grow an orange tree, now you need to figure out how to get fruit from it. And for this, the plant must have a formed crown suitable for reproduction. If you don't do this, you can get a harvest only in a decade. Branches of the fifth order bear fruit. Therefore, in the spring, branches longer than 10 centimeters are pinched and the lower leaves are torn off. This will create a branchy tree with a uniform crown.
Such manipulations are made in the spring. Actions should be performed over the kidney, so that it is outside. Special attention is given to shoots weakened, strongly elongated and growing inside the crown. And if the orange tree has grown strongly, more than a third of a meter, with poor development of lateral branches, the top is mercilessly cut off.
Transfer
The rule of replanting indoor plants annually does not apply to the orange tree. It should be resettled about once every three years. Young specimens can be transplanted in two, but not more often. This is done by the transshipment method, without crumbling the roots. Special attention is paid to drainage - its layer must be thick enough. And the movement must take place before the orange tree (photo) blooms. Moreover, this process is unacceptable when it is already "feeding" the fruits.
Stimulation of fruiting
In order for an orange tree at home to bring you a harvest, you will have to devote extra time to it. Without care on your part, its fruits will be small and bitter. There are two ways to improve their quality:
- graft. If there is another tree that has already given fruit, small identical pieces are carefully cut out of the bark of both and change places. To prevent the damaged area from rotting, it is wrapped in cellophane. The operation is quite dangerous for plants. If you are afraid not to cope - call a professional for help;
- wintering in extreme conditions... Fruiting will begin a little later than with vaccination, but much faster than without it. The orange tree is taken out into the cold (not excessive, so as not to freeze), watering and feeding are stopped. In such harsh circumstances, it must withstand at least a month. In the spring, he is again surrounded by care. Already in the third year after hardening, it will give flowers.
If the capricious man still deigns to bloom, he can be pollinated - with an ordinary brush. However, if there are a lot of flowers, and the extra ones are pinched, then the fruits will appear without pollination.
The bone will come in handy!
If you are suspicious of the specimens offered in flower shops, you can try growing an orange tree from seed. To do this, go to the nearest supermarket and buy ripe, saturated color fetus. Its bones cannot be stored after being eaten; they must be planted immediately. The pot for the future tree is taken from clay. Since it is not a fact that the selected seed will sprout, several should be laid in the container at once. In case of increased success, the trees can be planted in separate "apartments" later. The land is bought special, for citrus fruits - or it is assembled independently, from medium-sized sand, humus, leafy soil and turf - three parts are taken of it, all other components one by one. The seed from which the orange tree should grow is immersed in the soil by two centimeters, after which the surface is sprayed with water, and the pot is covered with glass or wrapped in polyethylene. For a week, the container is placed in darkness and warmth, and then moved to the windowsill (again warm). Until the shoots appear, the shelter is not removed.
The orange tree is. It can be propagated by cuttings, grafting or seeds. If you wanted to grow this yourself, then it is better to choose the seed method, since it is the easiest of all.
This article will discuss how to grow an orange from a seed in a pot at home.
general information
The tree has a dense, compact crown. The leaves are bright green and dense. The branches are covered with light bark. It blooms with white, light flowers. Indoor orange bears fruit after 7 years of life. The fruits can be eaten as they are very tasty.
Did you know? There are about 600 varieties of oranges in the world.
The height of the plant depends on the variety and can reach 1-2.5 m. Before you can grow an orange at home, you need to decide on the variety.
The most popular are:
- This variety grows short, up to about 1 m. It bears fruit very well. The fruits ripen for about 9 months.
- "Gamlin"- grows up to 1.5 m. It has juicy oranges with a sweet and sour taste, which ripen in late autumn.
- - this variety is the most preferred among domestic ones. The plant can reach 2 m. During flowering, the tree smells very nice. The fruits are quite large - their weight reaches about 300 g.
It is quite possible to grow an orange from a seed at home. Let's consider how to do this so that it bears fruit. - at a height of 10 cm from the ground, you need to cut off the crown of the selected tree;
- then you need to split the trunk and insert the handle there;
- the scion must have 3 buds;
- then you should combine the two branches and wrap the vaccination site using a film;
- to preserve moisture, cover the plant with a film and put it in a bright place.
Growing from seed
In order for the seeds to germinate, it is necessary to plant them correctly, observing the conditions.
Planting seeds
It will not be difficult to grow an orange from a seed. Consider how to plant seeds at home. The seeds must be obtained from a ripe orange. They must be of the correct shape, not empty or dry. They need to be cleaned of pulp, rinsed and soaked for 8-12 hours in water. The soil can be made from, sand, turf soil (1: 1: 2). Or you can buy a special one for.
You can sow seeds in separate small containers, the volume of which is about 100 ml. Or it is allowed to plant all the seeds in one box. It is recommended to keep a distance of 5 cm between seeds. The planting depth should be 1 cm.
After that, lightly soil follows, cover the container with a film and remove in dark place until sprouts appear.
When the sprouts reach 1.5-2 cm and they have 2 leaves, they should be transplanted into separate pots with a diameter of about 8 cm.
Important!It is better not to use large containers for planting - the soil, where there are no roots, remains wet for a long time and sour.
Conditions
Loves light, therefore the best place for the pot there will be south or southeast windows. To avoid sunburn on the leaves, it is recommended to shade the tree. But the lighting should remain bright.
A seed-grown orange tree loves warmth. Therefore, in the summertime, +21 ... + 25 ° C is considered a favorable temperature for the growth of citrus. 
If it is higher, then the orange will begin to grow actively, but will not bear fruit. In winter, a temperature of +10 ... + 15 ° C is suitable for the plant.
Important! The plant does not tolerate drafts, therefore, the tree should be protected from them.
Crown formation
To citrus tree fruited at home, you need to take care of a suitable crown for this. If it is not formed, then the fruits can be harvested no earlier than in 10 years.
The plant bears fruit on branches not lower than the fifth order. The procedure consists in pinching the branches after they reach 10-15 cm. This must be done above the bud so that it is outside.
You should also cut off weakened shoots that are too elongated and growing inward. Thanks to such pruning, after a few years, it will turn out with many short shoots.
Reproduction
The homemade orange tree is propagated by seeds, grafting and cuttings. A plant grown from seed requires less maintenance. But the fruits of such a tree are different from the parent ones. How to grow an orange from seeds is described above.
The method of cuttings retains varietal characteristics. To get, you need sharp knife cut off a twig, which is covered with bark and has a length of about 10 cm.They are planted in sandy ground and make a mini greenhouse. 
It should be in a bright place, but not directly exposed to the sun. The soil should always be slightly moistened. After 30 days, the cuttings should take root and can be transplanted into separate containers.
Grafting allows you to get a quick harvest. It is recommended to take the graft from a fruiting tree. It is necessary to cut off the stalk with a very sharp knife. It is recommended to graft on orange trees or those that have reached the age of three.
The vaccination process should go like this:
Did you know?In the New World in 1493, the first orange seeds and seedlings appeared thanks to Christopher Columbus.
Care
Growing an orange from a seed at home is proper care behind the tree.
Watering
The citrus tree should be followed regularly as soon as the topsoil dries up. But it is not worth overmoistening, because the roots can rot. In winter, cut to 2-3 times a week. The water should be kept warm.
Spraying
Caring for an orange tree at home includes spraying. The plant loves moisture, so in the heat it should be sprayed daily.
In cool weather, this procedure can be performed 1-2 times a week. If the air in the apartment is dry in winter, then the tree needs to be sprayed every day.
Every 2 weeks from March to October, it is recommended to feed the orange tree with a complex citrus fertilizer. You can make this at home. 
To do this, dilute (20 g), (25 g) and (15 g) in 10 liters of water. It is recommended to add to this mixture 1 time per season, and 1 time - a little.
The most beneficial effect of orange blossom tea is on nervous system person. Today in Europe, teas that include orange blossom are considered one of the most effective natural remedies against insomnia and nervous strain.
Unfortunately, you probably won't be able to make tea with orange flowers on your own. Well, the orange tree does not grow in our latitudes. Of course, you can use, but there are not many flowers on such a tree. You can go on vacation in a hot southern country and stock up on orange blossom there. However, even in this case, you are unlikely to succeed, because orange flowers must be properly dried, otherwise they will not bring any benefit.
However, you should not despair. Fortunately, there are many tea companies in the world that produce ready-made teas with orange flowers. Today in Russia the easiest way to buy the following brands of teas with orange flowers.
All professional orange blossom teas can be divided into two groups. The first includes teas in which orange flowers are only nutritional supplements for tea, for example, black or green. The second group includes teas that are exactly flower teas without tea addition in the traditional sense of the word.
Orange blossom teas as an additive
TeaHelios "Tea Orange with Flowers"
Brand teaHelios« TeaOrangewithFlowers”Is a black tea with orange blossom added. It is recommended to brew this tea like regular black tea.
Constellation of love tea
Constellation of Love tea is produced by the Finnish company Aaro Forsman. "Constellation of Love" is green tea with the addition of orange and hibiscus flowers, as well as slices of papaya and apples.
Mabrok tea "1001 nights"
Tea from the world famous Ceylon company "Mabroc Teas (PVT) Ltd" is an amazing blend of black and green tea with the addition of rose petals, orange flowers, sunflower and cornflower, as well as natural strawberry extract.
Orange Flower Tea
Tea " Orange flower”Brand“ Elitchay ”includes semi-fermented Chinese oolong, or red tea, orange flowers, etc.
Correct brewing of this tea requires two teaspoons of dry tea in 300 ml of water, boiling water and five minutes of time. Only if all these conditions are met, the Orange Flower tea will turn out golden color, sweet in taste and will be fragrant with the scent of a blooming orange.
Floral orange teas
TeaSidroga- "Orange Blossoms"
The company "Sidroga" is a German-Swiss company specializing in the production of natural teas. Orange Blossom tea is available in the form of portioned sachets.
Curiously, the taste of Orange Blossom tea depends on how many times it is brewed. The specialists of the company "Sidroga»Recommend to brew this tea three times. All three times hot water, but not with boiling water. The brewing time is five minutes.
After the first brewing, Orange Blossom tea has a thick honey aroma. After the second brewing, the aroma of the tea becomes more delicate. After the third time, it fully matches the scent of a blooming orange tree.
In addition to Orange Blossom tea, Sidroga produces another type of tea, which also includes flowers... This is tea “Cidroga Apple with Cinnamon. Wellness ".
Tea “Cidroga Apple with Cinnamon. Wellness ”is prepared on the basis of dry apples, orange flowers, hibiscus and cinnamon. Just like the Orange Blossom tea, this tea is indispensable for nervous overstrain and stress.
Fleurs d`Oranger Orange Blossom Tea
Fleurs d'Oranger Orange Blossom Tea includes red orange flowers. The tea is supplied in tea bags and must be brewed with hot water.
Botanical name: orange tree (Citrus sinensis) - species fruit trees, belonging to the genus citrus of the orange subfamily of the Rutaceae family. It has long been grown in culture, the fruits of the tree, oranges, are widely known and are considered one of the most useful and delicious fruits.
Homeland of the orange: China.
Lighting: photophilous.
The soil: light, loose, with a neutral reaction
Watering: abundant during growth, limited during rest.
Maximum tree height: up to 12 m.
Average tree lifespan: 75 years old.
Landing: propagated by cuttings, seeds, grafting.
Description of the orange
Orange is cultivated plant and in wildlife does not occur. It is a hybrid form obtained in ancient times by crossing citrus species such as mandarin (Citrus reticulata) and pomelo (Citrus maxima)
The orange tree (see photo below) is evergreen, with a compact dense crown, there are rather large thorns or thorns on the branches and young shoots. Sizes strongly depend on the variety, tall forms can reach 12 m, grafted on dwarf rootstocks - 4-6 m, and grown as indoor plants do not exceed 2-2.5 m.There are even more compact varieties created especially for indoor use and having a height only 60-80 cm.
The orange root system is superficial and has a number of features that must be taken into account when cultivating it. So, unlike other fruit trees, there are no root hairs on the roots of an orange, through which moisture and nutrients are usually absorbed; instead, on the tips of the roots, there are cases with colonies of soil fungi that exist in symbiosis with the plant.
Mushrooms receive from it carbohydrates and amino acids, other substances necessary for their vital activity, and in exchange they convert water and mineral compounds, primarily phosphorus, into a form available for assimilation by a tree.
Such a community, called mycorrhiza, helps to increase the yield of the crop, the growing mycelium increases the absorbing surface of the roots, but, on the other hand, makes the host plant more vulnerable, since mycorrhiza does not tolerate the lack of water, low soil temperature, and especially suffers when the roots are exposed.
In this regard, trees when grown in open ground often require artificial irrigation and very poorly tolerate transplanting with an open root system.
Orange leaves in the photo with a description
Orange leaves are dark green, leathery, pointed oval in shape, their size is approximately 10x15 cm. They have a solid wavy or serrated edge and petioles with small winged appendages, connected to the petioles through a fairly wide intermediate articulation. Inside the leaf plates there are glands filled with aromatic oil, the smell of which is similar to that of orange blossom. The lifespan of one leaf is about 2 years. Most of them (about 25%) fall off during the dormant period, from February to March, another quarter - throughout the year. Healthy tree only loses old leaves.
The biological characteristics of the orange include the property of the leaves of different ages perform different functions. The young participate in photosynthesis, that is, the plant breathes with them, while the old ones serve to accumulate nutrients necessary for the growth of branches, flowering and ripening of fruits. Excessive loss of old leaves with unfavorable external conditions leads to a delay in tree development, absence or weakening of flowering and fruit setting.
Orange flowers with description and photo
The orange flower is bisexual, large, up to 5 cm in diameter, with five white, less often reddish, elongated ovoid petals. In the center of the little-opening perianth there is a long single pistil surrounded by many yellow stamens. Formed in the axils of the leaves on the shoots current year usually growing downward or horizontally.
Orange flowers (see photo below) are usually collected in a brush of 6 pieces, less often they are single, have an intense aroma. Flower buds are laid in March-early April, and long time, sometimes up to a month, are in the bud stage.
The opening of the petals and the setting of fruits occurs at a strictly defined temperature, about 16-18 ° C, at a higher or lower temperature background, the buds crumble. A blossoming flower lives no more than 2-3 days. There are varieties without pistils, they do not need pollination and produce fruits without seeds.
Fruit of the orange tree
The fruit of the plant is round or broadly oval in shape, has a structure characteristic exclusively for representatives of the subfamily of orange, and is called hesperidium or orange. It is multi-nested, multi-seeded or seedless, close in structure to a berry. The outer part, or pericarp, is a soft and thick skin up to 5 mm thick, smooth or slightly rough, covered with zest, and below it there is a thin white layer called albedo. Orange peel, depending on the variety and degree of ripeness, makes up from 17 to 42% of the fruit weight, its color varies from green and light yellow to orange and reddish-orange. The taste is usually bitter, the consistency is loose or dense elastic, and the large translucent glands are filled essential oil, the percentage of which ranges from 1.2% to 2.2%.
The inner part of the fruit, or intercarp, consists of separating nests or lobules (9-13 pcs.), Covered with films of varying thickness and density and filled with large juicy pulp cells in the form of nipple sacs, sweet, sour-sweet or sour-bitter taste. In most varieties, numerous seeds are immersed in the pulp, white in section, usually multi-embryonic. There are also seedless forms of the plant, in which the fruits are formed parthenocarpically, without pollination, and the seeds are absent.
How do orange seeds ripen?
The tree is characterized by remontability, or the ability to repeatedly bloom and bear fruit during one season, therefore, as can be seen in the photo, a blooming orange can be simultaneously decorated not only with buds, but also with fruits varying degrees maturity. The latter ripen, depending on the variety, within 8-9 months, and with a lack of lighting and longer, in a mature state they can remain on the branches long time, and when grown in the open field by the spring they again acquire green color, and then turn yellow again by autumn. The seeds of oranges, ripening for two years, are of better quality, but the taste and nutritional properties of such fruits deteriorate due to the low content of biologically active substances.
Orange belongs to long-lived trees, and although it grows quickly, from 40 to 50 cm per year, it matures and ages slowly. Grown from seeds, it begins to bear fruit at the age of 8-12, or even 15-20 years, and lives up to 75 years or more. Plants grafted and obtained from cuttings bear fruit earlier, after 4-5 years.
Origin of the name, history and use of the orange
The name of the fruit sounds different in different languages, and mainly reflects its origin. So, in Holland it is "Appelsien", in Germany - "Apfelsine", "Appelsine" or "Sineser apfel", in France - "Pom de Sine". All these names translate as "apple from China". The name "orange" accepted in Russian also comes from the German "Apfelsine".
Later in France, the fruit was called "orange", as well as in England. This word got into English from Spanish, in which the orange is called "naranja" from the Arabic "nareng". There is another name for the fruit, "portogalo", which is common in a number of southeastern European languages and literally means "Portugal". It reflects the fact that for a long time it was Portugal that was the main exporter of sweet fruits to other countries in the region. One way or another, oranges are called in Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Macedonia, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. The name "portogallo" is considered obsolete but is still used in Italy.
The plant is considered one of the oldest cultivated fruit trees in the world. The first description of an orange is found in the writings ancient greek philosopher and the naturalist Theophrastus as far back as 350 BC. The ancient Greeks met him during the campaign of Alexander the Great to India, where, it is believed, the fruits were brought from China. According to most researchers, it is China that is the birthplace of the orange, but there is another opinion about its origin. For example, the famous Russian scientist Nikolai Vavilov considered India to be the birthplace of culture, from where it was later introduced to China. V Western Europe the orange appeared only in the 15th century, or rather, in 1548, when the Dutch brought an unfamiliar fruit from southern China. In the Mediterranean and especially in the southern part of the continent, it is fruit tree appeared much earlier. So, after the liberation of the Pyrenees and Southern Italy from the Saracens in the 11th century, it turned out that orange trees were encountered quite often in the gardens of local emirs and sultans, a mention of them can be found in the poems of the famous Nizami, a classic of Persian poetry, dated back to 1197.
Soon after the plant became known in western Europe, it quickly spread throughout the Mediterranean coastline, then into Africa and South America, where it also took root well and has since been widely cultivated. Within the territory of Russian Empire oranges grew in Georgia, in the Batumi region, already at the beginning of the 18th century, and in the 19th century they began to be cultivated in the Sochi region.
Currently, the cultivation of oranges is set to industrial base, its volumes are increasing every year. Fruit production forms an important part of the economies of countries with subtropical and tropical climates such as the USA, Brazil, Mexico, India and Pakistan, China, Iran and Egypt, as well as all Mediterranean countries. Somewhat less of them are grown in Spain and Greece.
In Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union due to climatic conditions, the orange is less common, it is cultivated in the south of Ukraine, in the Crimea, in the subtropics Krasnodar Territory... To the north, it can be found only in greenhouses, or as a houseplant.
The producing countries export these valuable and popular fruits all over the world. They easily deteriorate, therefore they are removed from the tree unripe and, to prevent damage during transportation, are stacked in boxes of 200-500 pieces, with each fruit wrapped in non-glued paper. In order to choose when buying quality product, it should be borne in mind that smaller and medium-sized oranges are sweeter and more juicy, and harvested at the beginning of winter (late November - December), they last longer and have better taste qualities... In addition, ripe fruits have a strong aroma and are much heavier than immature ones.