Old fashion Tangerines for indoors

General Fruit Growing
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This year more so than most the tangerines in the markets are just awful. I have been considering adding a tangerine/mandarin/whatever to my indoor citrus “grove” but had a few questions for folks more familiar with these fruits:

I recall the “tangerines” I used to get several decades ago. They had seeds, but were much sweeter and easier to peel than the current ones in the market. Anyone know what varieties those old ones might be and if they are still around? And if they would work in a northern setting where they are brought in for the winter.

Second question is can I graft some tangerine scion onto one of my existing citrus trees, creating a multi- variety tree? I was thinking of putting it on the key lime.

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You don’t have to accept seeded fruit to have better quality. Choose “Gold Nugget”, “Owari Satsuma”, or “Tango” seedless cultivar.

In my opinion grafting onto lime is a poor choice both in flavor and productivity. I’d just order a two-year sapling on dwarf rootstock.

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I think those choices above are the best. Tango seems most like a tangerine, dark orange and a bit of tang. The other 2 are more sweet, they are all excellent!

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My wife picked up some tangerines (which is a trade name right? Like Kleenix is for facial tissue, is it not a mandarin?), Anyway they were sweet, not dry and very little to no tartness.
I found that they had about one seed per fruit. I saved a few. I don’t really want to buy a cultivar as this is far from ideal conditions here. I may or may not keep a seedling. I threw one out already, have another from a Florida Amish heirloom orange. That orange had zero tartness and was all sugar. I got one seed to sprout.I’m going to plant these tangerine seeds today. Hope one takes…

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Good luck with the “tangerine” seedlings @Drew51 .

It may just be “fond memories” but I can’t say that I have had a tangerine in many years that compares to those that were around a few decades ago. Perhaps the new varieties which they are selling are more productive, keep better or have other grower desirable traits, but taste isn’t one of them.

If I could find one of those older cultivars I’d grow it. Perhaps I am just jaded, but I think I would want to try these new cultivars’ fruits before investing the time, energy and space in the GH to growing one of them. Anyone know where one can buy “tangerines” which are labeled by variety instead of their copyrighted name (“Cuties”, etc)

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I guess it depended where you live as to me some of the ones I’m getting now are way better than what what I had as a kid in the 60’s. A lot of sellers are in state only because of so many restrictions. Four Winds on the west coast was a big distributor. The Florida nurseries cannot ship out of state anymore.
This site is one reason i grow from seed, Expensive! Here is some tangerines.

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First year I’ve tried gold nuggets. So far I’ve bought enough that I could have got a tree. Lol. My 5 year old son loves them too. Top notch mandarin.

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I have a Tango tree and the fruit is good but I think Gold Nugget is better, so I just added one of those to the yard too. Owari Satsuma remains the best tasting mandarin I’ve ever had, not to mention the easiest to peel. Can’t imagine a better citrus fruit. For kicks I just grafted Okitsu Wase Satsuma and Miho Wase Satsuma to extend the season beyond Owari. You can order budwood of those from CCPP and make your own trees.

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