Q: I have an Owari Satsuma mandarin orange tree that was covered with blossoms, but no fruit. What happened? It has produced in previous years.
A: For those readers not familiar with it, the Owari Satsuma is a sweet, seedless mandarin that usually matures around the end of the year. The tree tends to be on the smaller side, making it a desirable citrus tree for home gardens. It is more tolerant of cold weather than most other citrus trees, but it does not do as well in the heat of our desert. The fruit is very easy to peel and has often been referred to as the zipper-skin fruit. This old-time variety is self-fertile, so no cross-pollination is necessary.
Since your Satsuma is self-fertile, we can eliminate pollination issues as the reason for its lack of crop. That leaves us with two other possible causes for the phenomenon you are observing. The first possibility is that your tree was water-stressed sometime between the time it flowered and the time the fruits reached the size of large grapes. During this period, if a citrus tree does not receive adequate water, the tree will abort any fruit it has set in order to conserve its resources.
The second potential explanation can occur with many varieties of citrus but is especially common in mandarins and their relatives, including your Satsuma. The condition is referred to as “alternate-bearing” and describes the production of many fruits one year followed by the production of a small number of fruits, or even no fruit, the next year. Typically, the individual fruits of the large fruit-set year are quite small in size, and the individual fruits of the small fruit-set year are larger in size. Efforts to minimize this behavior focus on thinning fruit on the large crop years and making sure all the old fruit is removed from the tree by summer. Alternate-bearing is a problem to commercial citrus growers too, not just home gardeners, and citrus breeders always strive to produce varieties that are not alternate-bearing.
As long as your tree is receiving good basic garden care and you try to address the two possible causes that I’ve described, you are likely to have a good crop next year and in years to come.
Q: My Boston fern looked fine all summer and fall but now it looks shabby. What can I do?
A: The winter months bring reduced light and lower humidity. Boston ferns do poorly under these conditions. Try to find a brighter location for your plant to spend the rest of the winter. Keep the soil moist and mist the plant lightly every day. A liquid fertilizer should be applied once a month at half-strength. When spring comes, you can return your plant to its former location.
Source - http://www.pe.com/
