Mandarin Madness

Trees loaded with mandarins are a welcome sight during the cooler seasons. Generations of kids have thrived on lunchbox mandarins! Conveniently, they come pre-packed in an easy-to-peel, compostable wrapper...after peeling comes the reward, as each juicy segment pops in the mouth, to make a sweet taste explosion. It’s hard to think of a better ‘on-the-go’ healthy snack.

Juicy mandarins are well-suited to NZ’s temperate and subtropical regions, preferring a sunny location with well-drained soil. There are a range of varieties with overlapping harvest seasons, like Satsuma, Clementine and Encore: if you team them up you can extend your harvest season from late autumn, right through to early spring.

In cooler temperate areas, Satsumas are an excellent choice. The fruit has very few seeds, the puffy rind is always easy to peel and the kids can pull the segments apart without getting covered in juice. Popular Satsuma varieties include ‘Miyagawa’ (an early-season type that ripens May–August), ‘Miho’ (also early, harvest June-September), ‘Silverhill’ (ripens May-June) and ‘Kawano’ (ready to harvest June-July).

Popular mandarin varieties include ‘Burgess Scarlet’ (fruits from June-August), ‘Richards Special’ (ripens June-July) and old favourite ‘Clementine’ (begins to ripen in July, keeps fruiting for months). 

You can pair up any of the earlier varieties above with late-ripening ‘Encore’ (harvest October-February) or ‘Afourer’ (September-February), to push your harvest season right into summer.

Grafted dwarf mandarins only grow to about 2m tall, so they’re perfect for small backyard areas. Grafted trees are happy and productive when grown in a large pot or container (filled with good quality potting mix, like Yates Premium Potting Mix).

Growing Tips:

• Remove any small fruit that develop within the first two years, so the tree can devote its energy to growing strong, healthy stems and roots that can properly support an abundant yield of mandarins.
• Mandarins are famous for their generous fruit yield - but left to their own devices, they can develop excessive overloads of fruit. Too much fruit demands more energy than the tree can provide, which can encourage it to skip the next fruiting season. When a tree only produces fruit every second year, it’s known as biennial bearing (or alternate bearing). You can minimise this risk by removing about 1/3 of the fruit when it’s still small and green, to reduce the drain on the tree’s energy reserves. And don’t forget to feed, feed, feed!

• Mandarins are typical of citrus, being heavy feeders that require lots of nutrients to support all the foliage, flowers and developing fruit. So, start feeding in spring and continue until the mature fruit is harvested. Feeding weekly with Yates Thrive Citrus Liquid Plant Food in a watering can will give you an excellent yield of juicy fruit. Alternatively, you can top-dress the soil around the tree with Yates Thrive Citrus & Fruit Granular Plant Food for a gradual feed (early spring, mid-summer and late autumn applications are ideal).
• Maintain a layer of mulch under the canopy of your tree, with organic mulch like bark chip or compost. Don’t pile mulch up against the trunk; always leave a gap immediately around the trunk, to discourage diseases.