True. Most citrus do. Just google the name of the variety and the word polyembryonic. If it is polyembryonic it will grow true from seed.

now whether it ever flowers and fruits is a different story. Where do you live? Can you grow it in the ground? Can you wait up to 10 years or more?

there are real advantages to spending 20-60 on a grafted tree.

I live in Central Florida with orange groves all around. We have an old Murcott that's dying and saved seeds from it (probably) last fruit. Don't want to have to get into grafting or anything, just going to give them a try.

I'd suggest finding a tango mandarin tree in your area and plant that. It is a seedless version of your W. Murcott tree. The fruit is pretty much identical in flavor and texture. Here is a link to the description of a tango.

http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/tango.html

Best of luck and sorry to hear about your tree.

Evan

Most citrus trees (except kumquats) grown from seed will grow much faster and bigger over a grafted tree for the same time period because they are programed to fight for survival then produce fruit. Keep your seed grown trees and try a grafted tango. You can always top graft your seed trees later with the tango scions.

sweethee#3 · More Info

That has kind of a complicated answer.

The majority of mandarin varieties do not produce "true to seed", or at least they are not genetic clones. However, there are several varieties that do produce true to seed. For Satsuma, 90% of its seeds are identical (i.e. genetic clones). Typically the more "orange-like" mandarin varieties are going to be the ones that produce mostly seeds identical to the fruit parent.

However, of the mandarins that do not produce "true to seed", in all likelihood it is very likely that that the seeds will still be extremely similar to the parent (perhaps almost indifferentiable), if the blossoms weren't pollinated by a different citrus variety.

Something else important to realize is that trees that are grafted onto rootstock (like the normal ones sold at a nursery) behave differently from trees growing on their own roots. (I'm not going to waste effort further explaining this here)

Many varieties grown on good root stocks will produce better fruit than on their own roots. I have seen charts and am looking for links,.

Everything I’ve read says mandarins do grow true to type.

This is the information I have for four mandarin varieties:

Dancy, Kara ... seedlings/seed 1.37-1.71 ... percent nucellar 100
Satsuma ... seedlings/seed 1.44 ... percent nucellar 90
Kishu ... seedlings/seed 1.00 ... percent nucellar 0
King, Ponkan ... seedlings/seed 1.01-1.42 ... percent nucellar 21-98

(nucellar = genetic clone)

Clementine is also a very zygotic variety, like Kishu.

socal, where did you get this info?

H.B. Frost, R.K. Soost (1968) Seed reproduction: development of gametes and embryos,

article was in W. Reuther, L.D. Bachelor, H.J. Webber, The Citrus Industry, Volume II. Division Agricultural Sciences, University of California Berkeley, pp 292-334.

This stupid forum has artificial intelligence recognition algorithms that won't let me post the full reference. The post just completely disappears (as if deleted) when I try to include it.

I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure out what exact words are causing the block, and risk this post being deleted again. (It's already been auto-deleted a couple of times)

Edit: Ok, the original post above this one has finally reappeared. So I guess it didn't permanently disappear, it just temporarily disappeared awaiting some sort of moderation, I am guessing.