How to grow a tangerine from a bone and take care of it at home?

Growing a tangerine from a bone is a task that even a beginner can handle. Planting seeds, waiting for shoots and watching a beautiful tangerine tree with a globular crown grow is a fun process. It is grown on a windowsill as an ornamental plant, forming a compact crown. It decorates a winter garden or an insulated loggia. Caring for it is easy, and if you have patience and make a little effort, the mandarin will delight you with fragrant fruits.

Choosing seeds

Growing tangerines will be successful if high-quality seed is used for this.

In order to collect seeds for germination, you need to choose the most ripe tangerine. Brightly colored fruits without damage or spoilage are most suitable. The pulp should be juicy, without signs of wilting, and the film on the slices should be tender, not overdried.

If for food we prefer tangerines without seeds, then for reproduction it is better to have as many of them as possible. In citrus fruits, not all seeds have good germination, so several seeds should be taken at once for germination.

Tangerines can be plucked from a fruit-bearing tree, bought from a store or market. For growing at home, the variety does not matter. In mandarin, just like in other citrus fruits, when propagated by seeds, the varietal characteristics of the parent plant are not transmitted.

The extracted seeds must be carefully examined and rejected small, deformed and too light in comparison with others.

Advice

The seeds should be planted immediately after extraction from the fruit; it is not recommended to dry them.

Preparing to disembark

To speed up the germination of mandarin seeds, they must be placed in a warm, humid environment that is easy to create at home. This will require:

• flat container (plate, container with low sides);
• natural material that absorbs moisture and retains it for a long time;
• spray.

For germination, a paper towel, cotton cloth, gauze are suitable. If there are few seeds, you can use a cotton pad.

An absorbent cloth is placed on the bottom of the container and abundantly sprinkled with warm water from a spray bottle. Bones are placed on it at some distance from each other. Cover with a second layer of fabric, which is also moistened. Excess water from the bottom of the container is carefully drained. The container is placed in a warm place; bright lighting is not needed at this stage.

Further care is to keep the seeds constantly moist.

• It's important not to overdo it. If there is a lot of water at the bottom of the container, the bones will rot.
• If the fabric dries up, the seeds will not sprout. Citrus fruits are unlikely to germinate when dry.

If it is not possible to constantly monitor the moisture content of the seeds, the container can be covered with cling film on top. Several holes should be made in it for ventilation. This method is temporary, because air must be supplied to the seeds.

After 3-5 days, the bones will swell and hatch. Only germinated seeds are transplanted.

Soil preparation

You will need any wide bowl in which you can plant several seeds at once. There should be a hole at the bottom to drain excess water.

A drainage layer of expanded clay, pebbles or pieces of polystyrene is laid on the bottom.

Particular attention should be paid to soil preparation. Citrus soil should not contain peat. The acidic earth oppresses the tangerine tree, it slows down in growth and gets sick.

At home, you can prepare the ground mixture yourself. Mix:

• 2 pieces of garden land;
• 1 part of coarse river sand, which should be pre-washed;
• 1 part compost or humus.

For disinfection, the prepared mixture should be steamed, heated in the oven, or spilled with a solution of light pink potassium permanganate.

You can buy ready-made soil. Specialty stores sell special citrus soil. For planting tangerines, you can use a universal composition with neutral acidity, not lower than 6.0 PH.

Planting seeds

Prepared bowls with soil are sprayed with water, the soil is shallowly loosened and depressions are made no more than 1 cm.

Sprouted seeds are placed in the recesses, the distance between them should be 2-3 cm. Sprinkle with earth on top and spray again.

Cover the plate from above with cling film, pulling it. A distance of at least 2 cm should remain between the shelter and the soil. Small holes are pierced in the film for ventilation.

Care during this period is to keep the soil moist. Care must be taken to prevent mold from appearing on the surface. If this happens, it is necessary to ventilate, carefully remove the top layer of the earth and spray with "Fitosporin". If necessary, add soil.

Citrus seeds sprout for a long time, from 20 to 35 days, and not together.

Important!
The film cover is removed when the first seedling appears.

The dish is transferred to a sunny windowsill. It is advisable that the sun shines on the tangerine in the morning. At home, the best place is the east window, southeast and south. On the south window in the midday heat, the plant is shaded.

Before transplanting, care consists in watering as the soil dries, loosening and spraying. In hot weather, sprayed several times a day. When the leaves are wetted, the sun should not fall on them, otherwise sunburn is possible.

The transplant is carried out when 4-5 leaves appear on the seedling.

Transplanting seedlings and further care measures

During the transplant, all the seedlings are dug up and rejected. For further cultivation, only the strongest and most developed are left, especially if citrus grafting is planned and the seedlings will be used for the stock.

The pots should not be too large, the soil is used the same as for germinating seeds. After transplanting, each seedling is watered with water, and 15 minutes after watering, a root growth stimulator is introduced. The appearance of a new leaf means that the plant has taken root.

In the first year, care includes:

• control over soil moisture, timely watering with warm water;
• maintaining air humidity - for this you need to regularly spray the foliage, put a container of water near the tree;
• loosening the soil;
• top dressing with complex fertilizer, which is better absorbed in liquid form.

Special care for tangerine trees is needed in winter. They do not tolerate air dried by heating devices poorly. With such a microclimate, a pest such as a spider mite can appear on citrus fruits.

You can increase the moisture by placing the bowl on a pallet on which a thick layer of pebbles is poured. As they evaporate, you need to add water to them. An electric humidifier is a good option for maintaining humidity.

Sometimes mandarin can suddenly shed most of the leaves. This happens if the care is not carried out correctly or the plant has experienced stress (draft, rearrangement, sudden change of lighting). After a while, the leaves will grow back. In order to avoid re-shedding foliage, you should reconsider your plant care and create more suitable conditions for the tangerine.

Will there be fruit on the tangerine?

There are two ways to achieve fruiting:

1. grafting a stalk taken from a fruiting mandarin;
2. changing the microclimate in winter.The air temperature should be lowered to 12 ° C, watering should be reduced, but at the same time the soil should not be allowed to dry out. Additional illumination is needed to extend daylight hours. In spring, when the air temperature rises to 15-18 ° C, there is a possibility that the tangerine will bloom.

It is not difficult to grow a tangerine from a stone, it is more difficult to achieve its fruiting. But even without fruit, the tangerine tree is a wonderful decoration for your home, requiring little maintenance.