Description of plant signs, interesting facts, tips for growing trees, recommendations for transplanting and reproducing tangerines, difficulties, types and varieties. Mandarin (Citrus reticulata) is one of the brightest representatives of the vast genus Citrus (Citrus), which is part of the Rutaceae family, in which dicotyledonous dicotyledonous representatives of the flora are combined. The plant is quite widespread in those regions of the world where tropical, subtropical and in some areas a warm-temperate climate prevails, but most varieties of tangerines grow in the dry lands of the Australian continent and in South Africa, but China is considered to be the main homeland. Mandarin was introduced to European countries at the beginning of the 19th century and then began to be cultivated in many countries, if climatic conditions allowed (Spain, southern France, etc.).
There are different versions of how this tree got its name. It is said that in ancient times, the fruit of the mandarin was presented as a gift to Chinese judicial officials and emperors (they were called "mandarins"). And also the amber-red fruits of the tree were very similar to the bumps on the hats of the Chinese rulers. Only rich people could afford to feast on the fruits; in those days, tangerines were worth their weight in gold.
A different story belongs to the Spaniards, who gave the tree with sun fruits the name of the Spanish dialect (it turned out, probably passing through the French language), since the Spanish derivative "mandarino" was formed from the original "se mondar", which translates as "easy to clean", which is clearly related to the peculiarity of the mandarin fruit, it is easy to separate the pulp from the peel. It is now unclear who gave the name to these pleasant fruits, it is important that they give health and joy around the globe.
So, tangerine is an evergreen perennial that has a tree-like or shrubby form of growth and reaches a height of 4 meters. Its leaves are small and ovoid or oval in shape. Their surface is bare and along its entire plane the patterning of glands is visible or they are present only along the edge. Their location can be alternate and, in rare cases, opposite. The petioles sometimes have wings, but are mostly wingless. Young shoots are painted in a rich green color.
Blossoming occurs in matte white buds. They are placed singly or in pairs in the leaf sinuses. The stamens have underdeveloped anthers and pollen. The flowering process takes place in the month of May.
After flowering, in place of the buds, fruits are formed with a diameter of 4-6 cm in yellow and orange-red shades. Ripening occurs from the end of October to December. Their shape is slightly flattened from the top to the base, so their height is slightly less than the width. Unlike other representatives of the citrus genus, mandarins have the flesh from the peel very easily separated. Its thickness is thin. The fruit has 10-12 lobules, they are well separated from each other. The pulp of the fruit is yellowish-orange and usually sweeter than that of an orange. It consists of many bags filled with juice.
The tree begins to bear fruit from 3-4 years of growth. On one plant, the number of fruits varies from 50 to 70 units.
Creation of conditions for growing tangerine, care
- Lighting and location selection. The plant loves soft, good lighting. It is best to install a pot with a tangerine on the window sills of an east, west or north location. In the south direction of the room, you will either have to put a flowerpot in the back of the room, or hang a tulle or curtain made of light translucent material on the window (you can make a curtain from gauze) so that from 12 days to 4, direct sunlight does not fall on the tangerine. With the arrival of spring heat, when there will be no night and morning frosts, you can take the tree out into the fresh air, choosing a place without getting direct streams of midday ultraviolet radiation.
- Content temperature. Mandarin loves warmth and therefore the low temperatures of its content will destroy it. But for tying buds, the thermometer should be in the range of 15-18 units. When wintering, the plant must be placed in a room where there is good lighting, and the temperature does not drop below 12 degrees. If this condition is not met, then the tangerine will not bear fruit.
- Air humidity. The plant loves to be sprayed with a leafy crown. In the summer, you can carry out this operation twice a day, and if the tangerine is kept in the winter at room temperature and dry air, then spraying is continued. If you do not raise the humidity of the air, then there is a danger of being damaged by pests.
- Watering the tangerine. In the spring and summer months, it is often required to moisten the soil in a pot 1-2 times a day. With the onset of winter, watering is reduced and carried out only once or twice a week. To do this, use soft water at room temperature (22-24 degrees). The earthen coma should not be allowed to dry, since the plant will immediately react by deformation of the leaf plates and their fall, and the fruit is also dumped. But waterlogging of the soil is also harmful to mandarin.
- Fertilization essential for tangerines that are grown indoors, as their fruits take on a bitter taste. And fertilizing will help increase the sugar content in fruits. Top dressing is carried out in the first half of summer. It is necessary to fertilize tangerine more often, the older it is and the longer it grows without changing the soil in one container. It is recommended to apply top dressing after the substrate has been moistened. Even in winter, if the plant is grown under supplementary lighting with phytolamps, then additional feeding will be required. It is best to use organic fertilizers (mullein solution), as well as combined mineral fertilizing. You can use special formulations for citrus fruits.
- Transplantation and selection of a substrate. When the tangerine is still young, it will need to change the soil and capacity annually. The signal for this operation is the development of all the provided soil in the pot by the root system of the plant, if this did not happen, then it is not worth transplanting. In this case, only the upper layer of the substrate changes. When the tree is already bearing fruit, the pot and soil change is carried out once every 2-3 years. It is better to do this procedure when the growth of the mandarin has not yet begun after the winter months. After the end of growth, flower growers do not recommend disturbing the tree. It is best to use the transshipment method so that the earth ball does not collapse. In the pot, up to a quarter of the volume of the container of the drainage material must be kept. The main thing when transplanting is not to deepen the root collar of the plant, it should be at the same level as in the old dishes.
For young plants, the soil mixture is compiled on the basis of sod soil, leafy soil, humus from cow dung and river sand, in a ratio of 2: 1: 1: 1.
When the tangerine is already an adult, the substrate is dismounted from turf, leafy soil, cow humus, coarse sand and a certain amount of oily clay (in a ratio of 3: 1: 1: 1: 0, 3).
Recommendations for breeding mandarin at home
To get a tangerine tree, you can use seed planting (generative method) or rooting cuttings (vegetative method).
For rooting, the tops of the shoots are cut off, and the cut of the cuttings is treated with a growth stimulator, which will increase the survival rate of the branch by 3-4 times. The handle should have at least 2-3 nodes with leaves. It is necessary to dip the cutting into a growth stimulator (for example, "Kornevin") and plant it in a moist soil. Cover the cuttings with plastic wrap or place them under a cut plastic bottle. It is necessary to install the vessel with the neck with the lid up, and then it is easy to ventilate or moisten the soil. Rooting of cuttings takes place within several months.
To grow a tangerine from a seed, you have to be patient, as this method is very long. Moreover, a plant grown in this way will require vaccination, otherwise it will be difficult to wait for flowering. For the rootstock, choose a lemon or grapefruit, which is grown at home from a grain. This procedure is carried out during the period of growth activation (April-May) or in the month of August. To do this, the following conditions must be met:
- the rootstock bush, where the "eye" will be grafted, must be an adult plant with a trunk about 6 mm in diameter;
- for cutting the cutting, a young shoot is chosen - this is a scion;
- garden pitch is needed for wound healing;
- vaccination tool and tape.
You need to do the following:
- At the site of the future grafting, all leaves and thorns are removed, a T-shaped incision is made (at the top not more than 1 cm, at the bottom - 3-4 cm).
- A part of the bark with an “eye” bud is cut into the scion and inserted into the incision. The graft is fixed to the rootstock, and then carefully secured with tape.
- The vaccination is provided with the conditions of a mini-greenhouse: it is covered with a film.
- After a month, the operation can be repeated to obtain at least one more vaccine suitable for growth.
- After a month, the sprouted shoot, if it has shown signs of engraftment, should be unwound from the film and gradually accustomed to the air in the room.
- When the scion begins to grow actively, the rootstock trunk is cut off. Having retreated from the vaccination by 3 mm, a cut is made obliquely.
- The wounds are treated with garden varnish, now all the useful juices go only to the new plant.
- A support is built for the mandarin - this is to provide him with vertical growth.
When performing the vaccination, everything must be done quickly and under sterile conditions.
Difficulties in cultivating a tangerine tree
Most often, the mandarin is attacked by a scale insect, spider mite or mealybug.
When these insects appear on the tree, the leaves begin to curl, turn yellow and fall off, a sticky, cobweb-like or cotton-like bloom will also be clearly visible on the back of the leaf plates, as well as in internodes. In this case, it will be necessary to process the plant with soap (30 grams of laundry soap, dissolve in a bucket of water), oil (a couple of drops of rosemary oil per 1 liter of water) or alcohol (pharmacy tincture of calendula) solution. The product is applied to a cotton pad and pests must be removed manually, and then sprayed on the entire tree. If folk and non-chemical remedies do not help, then insecticide treatment should be carried out (for example, "Actellik" or "Antara" and the like).
Of the problems that can happen, there are:
- whitish spots on the leaves as a result of sunburn;
- deformation and drying of the ends of the leaves with overdried soil or too dry indoor air;
- brown spots on the leaves and their fall off occurs with excessive watering.
Interesting facts about tangerine
It is the tangerines that the inhabitants of European countries associate with the arrival of the New Year holidays, since the harvest falls just on the December days. However, in northern Vietnam or China, if the population celebrates the New Year, focusing on the lunar calendar, then the tangerine tree is an analogue of our New Year tree.
Even oriental healers knew about the benefits of mandarin fruits. With their help, bronchial asthma, scurvy, overweight problems, as well as a number of other diseases were cured. They contain just a record amount of vitamins C and D, and due to the high content of vitamin K, they are credited with eating tangerines for hypertensive patients and people with heart disease, since this drug helps to strengthen the walls of blood vessels. In addition, these fruits help to reduce sugar, have a beneficial effect on the lungs and bronchi, and are also used to fight parasites.
However, in addition to all its useful properties, tangerine also has contraindications - it is not advisable to use the fruits for kidney diseases and problems with the gastrointestinal tract, since the juice can irritate the mucous membrane of the intestines, stomach and kidneys.
It is also interesting that:
- a white mesh, which is located between the slices and which is removed when cleaning the fetus, is saturated with glycosides that strengthen the heart muscle;
- phytoncides contained in fruits help fight depression and improve mood;
- there are no nitrates in mandarin fruit, which would be "afraid" of ascorbic acid;
- if you want to keep the fruits longer, then it is recommended to lubricate them with vegetable oil, which will clog the pores of the peel and act as a preservative.
Types of tangerines
Usually, all varieties of tangerines are usually divided into three groups:
- 1 group, contains heat-loving plants with large leaves and rather large fruits, painted in a yellow-orange color, their peel is large-knobby.
- 2nd group are Italian mandarins, which are distinguished by small leaf plates, they are called noble thermophilic tangerines (Cytrus reticulate deliciosa). The fruits of such plants are large in size, painted in orange-red shades, with a slightly elongated shape and a puffy skin (some of these varieties have a pungent and not very pleasant smell).
- Group 3 includes mandarins, which are native to the Japanese islands, they are called satsum (unshiu). These plants are the most frost-resistant, large leaf plates, small fruits with a thin peel and color in yellow-orange tones (sometimes even with a greenish tint).
Such plants, with their ability to withstand minus indicators up to 7 degrees, are successfully cultivated on the Black Sea coast. Unlike the fruits of the two previous groups, seeds are practically not found in satsum and therefore they are called seedless mandarin (Cytrus unshin). A plant grown in rooms can reach 1–1.5 m in height.
The following varieties are best grown indoors:
- Honey (Murcott), the plant is quite rare, characterized by the compact size of the bush. The pulp of the fruit is very sweet, honey.
- Shiva Mikan, tangerine with compact size and high growth rate. Its leaf crown is dense, the leaves are large, fleshy, casting a dark green color. Early variety with excellent flowering. His yield is average, and the fruit reaches a weight of 30 grams.
- Kovane-wasse is a fairly strong tree-like plant with thick stems, but weak branching. This variety grows quite large for indoor use. The leaf blades are fleshy with a hard surface. The fruits are orange-yellow in color and are medium in size.
- Unshiu, a variety of Japanese mandarin, early maturing and with a high yield. A small tree with a spreading crown, consisting of thin and very flexible branches, which are densely covered with leaves with a corrugated surface. The fruits are pear-shaped, there are practically no seeds, if you organize a constant illumination with artificial light, then this variety grows incessantly.
Of the hybrids, the following are distinguished:
- clementines (a hybrid of mandarin and orange) has very aromatic and medium-sized fruits of orange-red color;
- elendale (tangerine, tangerine and orange) give large flattened fruits up to 10 cm in diameter, with an exquisite taste and aroma;
- minneola (tangerine and grapefruit) have different sizes of red-orange fruits, elongated-round.
How to grow tangerines and how to care for them at home, learn from this video:
