Kia

[Stoneheartfarm]

I don't think they are sold new here any more, but we do have Festivas. When you say small, you mean small. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] They remind me of the small English Fords. With the way the Major Corporations keep buying each other out, it's hard to keep track of who makes what anymore. I figure eventually it'll get to where there are only 3 or 4 corporations and everything will either go through or come from them.

Not to get off this subject, but to further a previous one. I was at the local store today, and managed to snag a couple of cases of Clementines. Just wondered if those grow in your country? They are only here at Holiday time and usually get snapped up quite quickly.

SHF

[daedong]

Hi SHF

Don't know much about mandarines. but they are grown here many different varieties, Imperial, Clementines, Amigo, Ellendale, Honey Murcott, Hicksons. Most mandarine trees over fruity so it is very labor intensive, as they require thinning the small fruitlets and at harvest most varieties need to be snipped as opposed to just pulling

[Stoneheartfarm]

They are mandarins? Hmm, I hadn't placed them in that category. Here I thought they were something relatively new. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] I've been hooked for the last 3 years. Have to move quick at Holiday season to get a couple boxes before they're gone. This is the only time of year that the store stocks them. These come from Spain. There appear to be two varieties both claiming to be clementines. One is about the size and color of a tangerine (the ones I've been getting). The other is smaller, maybe slightly larger than a golf ball, and rather bright yellow. I haven't tried those yet.

They do sound labor intensive. Have to go over the field several times in order to assure a harvest, and then have to fight the tree to get them.

Did you plant your grove, or was it already there?

SHF

[daedong]

SHF

No i did not plant the orchard. I have only been here a few years. Most of the trees i have are 30+yrs old however i have a small number of young tress though.

[Stoneheartfarm]

I've noticed most of our Cherry Growers always seem to have a new orchard started somewhere, many times ripping out older trees and planting new ones. The apple growers do the same. Apples I can understand, because the popular varieties change, and the growers are always trying to stay ahead of the curve. Cherry varieties don't seem to change that much, so I assume it is to keep healthy stock, or to replace with trees that are more hardy.

Is citrus similar? Is there a lifespan/production curve? (In other words, the tree will produce so many kilos of fruit per year between this age and that age, with production being lower outside of that age range.) Sorry to ask so many questions, but I think you're the first citrus grower I've run across. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

SHF

[WVBill]

When I lived in California I noticed too that every now and then you would see an orange grove ripped out and then re-planted. That was the good news - usually when they ripped out the trees they "re-planted" with houses!
Anyway, I was told that for commercial growers, trees are depreciated for tax purposes and that when they are fully depreciated, the farmer will rip them out and replace them in order to keep the tax benefit of the depreciation.

[Stoneheartfarm]

I Kinda wondered if it had something to do with factory farming. I've seen apple trees in peoples yards that are over a hundred years old that still produce a great amount of fruit. And then, you head over to the lakeshore growing areas and watch field after field ripped out and replanted, (sometimes with trees, sometimes with houses and shopping malls. I was wondering if they do that anywhere else but here.)

On the other hand, it was only a couple of years ago that a bunch of the Cherry growers ripped out fields of trees and burned them in protest over cherry prices. Which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. If I want prices to go up, why would I tear out my own trees? Seems like it would be smarter to get the neighbor to tear out HIS trees. That way, I would still have cherries to sell at the new higher price. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

SHF

[daedong]

Fella's

The reason most trees are pulled is because as they get older the fruit in general tends to get smaller, Some times a heavy prune will rectify this but you lose a years production and the result will last a limited number of years, hardly worth it. Yield is also another factor with citrus, they tend to peak around 8 to 10 years plateau out, but drop away after 20 odd years.
Haveing said all of this in our country along with your own i believe many thousands of valencia tress have been pulled and replaced with grapes. This has lead to some recovery in the juice price, However countries like Brazil bugger our industry with huge plantings and cheap labor.

[Argee]

One would think with all the technology and sophisticated equipment that we have available to us in our great countries that labor would not be an issue. But greed and pork barrel mentality of our government officials lays all that to waste. I better stop, because when I get going on this subject there isn't an end.

[Stoneheartfarm]

Sometimes we do it to ourselves. I am watching cranberries right now. There is a great quantity of cranberries grown on our country's Northeast Coast area. So many, in fact, that we usually think of that area when we talk about cranberries.

I was surprised therefore to find that cranberries can be grown pretty much throughout the Northern area of the US and Southern Canada. That my own state has talked about increasing cranberry production. When I looked into it last year or the year before, I was told to expect about $6,000 US per acre per year in fruit. It requires some specialized equipment, but there is a grower's group that has purchased a picker and shares it back and forth at different farms.

The main investment appears to be preparing an area that could be flooded for picking and the usual planting and caring for the plants.

I don't think there are too many crops that could provide that kind of return without some heavy direct marketing. And, I like cranberries a whole lot. The problem is--how many cranberries does the world need? Now, if we could get some kind of Cranberry/Orange thing going... [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

SHF