Overly
mature fruit is a major cause of dryness in citrus. In other words, if
the fruit is left on the tree too long, drying occurs. A few other reasons include:
1) the application of too much nitrogen. 2) At times, dryness may occur when a tree is young; the fruit will improve as the tree ages. 3) Trees budded on certain vigorous rootstocks will make the problem of dry fruit worse. 4) For citrus grown in temperate climates, dry fruit is the result of low, freezing temperatures. Overall, certain varieties of citrus, especially mandarins, seem to be more susceptible to producing dry fruit.  In Hawaii and other tropical areas, a further complication is the fact that citrus fruit does not color well. In other climates, such as California, fruit develops a deep orange color due to the great differences between day time and night time temperatures. And under these conditions, oranges may actually turn color before they are sweet enough to pick. In the tropics, however, where there are less temperature fluctuations, the orange coloration does not develop well and therefore is not a good indication of ripeness. In fact, fruit is often sweet but will still show a green coloration; by the time the fruit shows good color, it may have dry segments already forming.  If you don’t know the harvest season for your particular fruit, I would suggest picking one good sized fruit, even though it may still be greenish in color. If it is not sweet enough, pick one every 1-3 weeks until it tastes sweet. Fruit will develop more sugar the longer it is held on the tree. |