orange seeds

[mycatis]

My son wants to plant the seeds from an orange, will they grow?

[Clanad]

This from an orange grower site:

The first thing to realise with seed sowing is that the fruit tree that grows from your pip will not be the same as the tree that the original orange came from. The reason for this is that the commercially grown oranges are grafted on to a suitable root stock and are hybrid oranges specially selected for thin skins, juice content, flash to pith ratio, flavour and so on.

Seeds from any hybrid will be variable and can resemble any of the parentage that went in to the hybrid, occasionally, and it is only occasionally, the resulting plants may even be better than the original.

So with this in mind you should only grow oranges from seed if you are looking for an ornamental plant. If you are growing a species orange then this is not a problem as they are inherently all the same anyway.

If you do want to sow seeds then you should use fresh seed which has been thoroughly washed free of any pulp, this will help prevent them from going mouldy. Use a soil based compost such as John Innes seed compost with the addition of 50% peat/coir compost added to retain moisture. The seeds should be pushed just far enough in to the compost so that they can't be seen. Water the compost thoroughly and place the tray or pot in a temperature of around 25�C - 30�C. After two to three weeks you should see the seedlings emerging and once they reach 6 to 7 inches high they can be removed they should be re planted in to individual 2.5 inch pots of the same potting mix and kept in a warm bright place but out of direct sunlight.

[mycatis]

thank you Clanad

[ursula62]

Mycatis

I planted 5 seeds from a satsuma thingy, and all of them grew. This was just after Christmas. Despite being kept indoors, they are now only 3 inches tall, but very healthy looking with lots of leaves. I've read that it could take up to 5-10 years before the plant is mature enough to produce flowers and fruit.

I would suggest that this process is a bit slow for a child. You're probably better off growing something fast like busy lizzies, sunflowers, sweet peas or nasturtiums to start with, or if you want something to eat you could try growing the seeds from inside a bell pepper - they grow very fast on the kitchen windowsill.  Just fill pots with compost and put the seeds on top and sprinkle a little more compost to almost hide the seeds, then put the pots inside a clear polythene bag until the shoots have more than 2 leaves.

Clanad is correct that the  orange seeds won't grow true to the plant, but unless you are growing in a heated greenhouse or orangery then the fruit wouldn't be edible in this country anyway as it's not warm enough (heatwave notwithstanding!).

[pernambic mi]

He might appreciate a quicker growing seed, such as water melon, peas or beans.

Sweet pea is great if you get a number of bamboo rods, tie together at the top (like a wigwam) because then he has a 'living tent' which isn't bad looking either.