In pots they grow quickly. Of course you may have to wait for 10-13 years for fruit. And the plant could be over 14-16 feet tall at that point. I LOVE Minneolas. You know you can find them quite easily online. Was it Harris that has a variegated Minneola? Intriguing.

Yes I have a variegated mineola. Somebody posted a picture of the fruits or the tropical fruit forum and soo pretty. Got my tree from Harris. Also have two green leaved mineolas. Hopefully some fruits next year too. This seed was planted just for fun because it looked soo round. If it gets too big, (if it survives) I will air root the top until it blooms and then just trim if I live that long ;)

Now I regret passing over the minneolas in the market yesterday! How many minneolas had seeds out of the total you've eaten? If you had to guess :) I'd like to know the odds of getting a seed before buying millions of minneolas lol

I planted seeds from a so-claimed Honeybell a year or so ago. Only two of the many seeds survived and they are as different as day and night. Since it is a hybrid, I probably have a tangerine and a grapefruit. One plant has the leaves of a grapefruit and the other of a tangerine. One is tall and lanky and the other short and full. Not sure I want to keep both for 10 to 15 years. lol.

kvetch I would say at least thirty. Only one really nice plump seed. Depending how many seedlings there are, I could send you one next spring?

Thank you Susanne, you are too kind! All of you on the forum are so generous :) like you, I only want to plant a seed for fun so you don't have to send me a seedling. I don't think I can wait 10 years either! I like the fun in eating fruit and finding seeds to plant. It's a really good way to get more fruit into my diet too or I'll always be buying and eating ice cream

Thank you for sharing James. Was there only one seedling?

Here is the tree as of today.

It made it through the winter without losing any leaves, but looked much worse than the pic above. The bright green leaves were drab and dull looking. I repotted and trimmed the roots in May as it was quite potbound and it finally started growing again in early July.

Very nice, James! Looks good, my Minneola seedling grows really slow, it was polyembryonic seed. Thanks for the update!

Tangelos are 83-97% nucellar. If you had two seedlings pop out of the same seed, chances are extremely high they are nucellar, which means they are going to be genetic clones of their fruit parent.

However, realize that plants grown from seed behave very differently than the ones from the nursery on grafted rootstock. It's going to take several more years before it begins fruiting, and the tree could grow much bigger, eventually.

Here it is this afternoon on a rare 60 degree February day. It has some yellowing here and there, and some undersized and pale winter growth, but has held up pretty well through the Maine winter. In another month the sun should be strong enough to warm a small greenhouse so it should start getting regular outdoor time by then.

I think it is great that many of you start trees from seeds. I just don't have the patience to do it. I tried a couple of times, but then spider mites made an appearance and that is when I gave up.

From what I have read, it is recommended that the minneola uses a pollinator. If that is true, then how is it that the seed will be true from that parent? Satisfactory cross-pollinators would be Dancy, Clementine, Temple, Sunburst, and Fallglo. I did some research on this topic and was told a Meyer lemon could do the job as well. So if you use a cross pollinator, then the seed could be anything. Is that correct?

Minneola tangelos are self sterile, thus they almost always produce true from seed.

Ok, I didn't know that. Thank you.

Hate to disagree, but self sterile doesn't mean true to seed.

Minneola doesn't really seem to grow the best on it's own roots (at the beginning) but it grows okay.

Silica, you said the minneola is self sterile. I have a variegated one that has some good size blossoms on it now and it's kept inside. I also have one outside starting to form blossoms. I am not sure if either is old enough to produce fruit as both were purchased last year. We will see how they do. I do not have any of the recommended trees to cross pollinate. Somebody said a Meyer lemon will do the job so that will interesting to see if that is true. To my knowledge nobody in the area has citrus trees. I have found it to be quite fun experimenting new ideas and to see how far you can push a tree in order to grow and produce fruit.

sococalnolympa, use your computer and you will quickly find that minneola tangelo produces true from seed. In fact not only minneola, but all tangelos produce true seed. Have a great day.

Now I am confused. I thought if a tree's blossom is pollinated by another tree, then that seed that is developing in the current year's fruit will be a hybrid between the mother tree and the other pollinating tree. Is this incorrect? I hated biology in high school!!

Denise, even if Minneola if cross pollinated the seed will still be true to type because Minneola is some what parthenocarpic, meaning that it is capable of producing fruit without being fertilized, in other words virgin reproduction. As PackNor wrote above if cross pollinated by a viable pollinator the tree will set a heavier crop .

Usually parthenocarpic means it is capable of producing fruits without seeds.

Seed formation requires fertilization (either self-fertilization or other).

It gets more complex than this because sometimes pollen with defective chromosomes can trigger parthenocarpic fertilization, where none of the DNA actually comes from the pollen. In such cases you might get a seedling with a haploid chromosome set. (But that's only the norm for a minority of varieties)

socalnolympia here is the definition of parthenocarpic: the development of fruit without fertilization or formation of seeds,

My seed-grown mineola tree is now 2 years old.

Here in late May with the weak winter growth pruned off:

Here on July 1 with new growth starting all over the tree:

And finally one taken today August 3:

Nice tree.

My seed grown calamondins are now 4 years old and still no fruit!

James it will be interesting to see what you end up with as a minneola is a hybrid.

As was mentioned, Minneolas are highly polyembryonic, so chances are very high you will get a clone.

Many so-called hybrid citrus produce polyembryonic seeds and can be counted on to grow true-to-type. It just takes the plants a long time to bloom and bear.

I found 12 seeds (!) in one Shiranui last winter. That's very unusual. But Shiranui is also a hybrid and is polyembryonic. So chances are good that these will all be clones. I planted them and 2 to 4 plantlets arose from each seed.

I've tried growing a few Minneola from seed, and the seedlings are not anywhere near as vigorous as seedlings from other varieties. In fact, I don't think any of my Minneola seedlings are still alive. I think they are very sensitive to soil conditions, both root rot and drying out.