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Does growing indoors induce seedlessness in citrus?

4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago

I thought I'd post this as a discussion topic since I'm curious.

The last few years I've grown citrus exclusively indoors. (I have a lot of experience growing them in a greenhouse before then, and still work with those citrus trees, so I can see the differences between ones grown indoors and ones grown in/out). And I've noticed something. On my trees I never seem to get any seeds. I do hand pollinate them when I notice they have a lot of flowers, and know for a fact that the last batch of fruits were hand pollinated several times. Yet, all of the fruit my trees have produced indoors have had no seeds (I did get a bloom the first year with my poor little Nagami and it produced 12 fruits from that bloom. All were seedless). Even my Fukushu, which I was told can be very seedy, has absolutely no seeds and very large fruit, (average size is about what you'd find in a bag of cuties in the grocery store). This year I've cut open 14 fruits so far, and not one has had a seed. I think this may be the result of no natural pollinators and the fact that I am pollinating the flowers myself (so I might not get to them at the exactly right time of day), but I'm curious if anyone else has noticed the same or if anyone has any ideas?

Comments (5)

  • 4 years ago

    I have never had a tree set flower that produced fruits inside. They all fall off. Could you tell me how to get inside flowers that set into fruits. What is your lighting setup. My citrus are mostly seedless but they get no cross pollination.

    bonsai_citrus_and_indoor_gardening thanked poncirusguy6b452xx
  • 4 years ago

    I'm not 100% sure what would be different, but I can explain my setup. I guess first, I should mention that I live about 100 ft from a wetland buffer, so that definitely changes the humidity profile in my house. (I can't keep garlic or onions more than a week or two before I have a full blown plant complete with roots sitting on my counter, and my orchids grow aerial roots like crazy and I have one that's been trying to climb our accent wall). I do grow in an organic soilless potting mix that contains bark fines, bark, pumice, and a few other ingredients which include bone meal and bat guano. I can look at the bag, next time I can get to it, as I spent a considerable amount of time going to local nurseries and reading soil mixes until I found one with a profile I liked. I have noticed that mixes that contain bat guano just result in much better growth. My plants are all potted in unglazed terra cotta, though I do this because with the humidity, even a well draining mix just won't dry in plastic. I know somewhere drier plastic can be a help. I use a mix of lights, daylight style LEDs all day during the winter from about 5 AM to 9PM, and then I use the west/southwest window in spring/summer once the days are about the same. The temperature in that room really varies as the heating doesn't really work in that part of the house, so it drops 10-15 degrees every night and can get cold in winter. The coldest I've measured was 45 degrees on a day when temps outside dropped into the single digits. None of my plants were too happy that day. In the summer I still have the 10 degree drop, but temps in the room have gotten above 89 before on really hot days. Usually when it gets that hot, I pull the blinds and use lights as I've noticed my kumquats just seem to resent too much heat. Their room averages about 68-70 during the day year round except for the odd extreme. I give them the occasional dusting of kelp meal for micros and feed them with a chicken manure/feather meal bagged fertilizer mix twice a year. Other than that they never move from where they live other than to be rotated for light. I do keep all my plants elevated over extra large humidity trays filled with lava rock and just let the drainage water evaporate on its own. Hope it helps! Just some of what I've learned in my climate that's given me some pretty good results.

  • 4 years ago


    This was part of one I sliced yesterday. Totally seedless.

  • 4 years ago

    I've noticed the same thing... My indoor trees produce fruit that are virtually seedless.

    bonsai_citrus_and_indoor_gardening thanked Horrifying Citrus Monster (Zone 7b, NYC)
  • 4 years ago

    I'd be curious if you could grow seedless versions of flavorful yet seedy citrus by simply growing indoors...