| Valencia orange | |
|---|---|
 Valencia orange | |
| Species | Citrus × sinensis |
| Hybrid parentage | pummelo × mandarin orange |
| Cultivar | 'Valencia' |
| Breeder | William Wolfskill |
| Origin | Santa Ana, California United States |
The Valencia orange is a sweet orange cultivar named after the famed oranges in Valencia, Spain. It was first hybridized by pioneer American agronomist and land developer William Wolfskill in the mid-19th century on his farm in Santa Ana, southern California, United States, North America. [1]
William Wolfskill (1798–1866) was an American born in Kentucky and reared in Missouri. He became a Mexican citizen in the 1820s, when he was in his 20s, while working in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as a fur trapper and then migrating to California, which was still part of Mexico at that time. He was given a land grant as a naturalized Mexican citizen under Mexican government rules. He cultivated numerous vineyards and grape varietals and was the largest wine producer in the region. He continued to buy land and later had sheep ranches as well as developing extensive citrus orchards. He hybridized the Valencia orange, a sweet orange, naming it after València, Spain, which has a reputation for its sweet orange trees.
Before his death in 1866, Wolfskill sold his patented Valencia hybrid to the Irvine Ranch owners, who planted nearly half their lands in its cultivation. The success of this crop in Southern California led to the naming of Valencia, California. It became[ when? ] the most popular juice orange in the United States.[ citation needed ]
In the mid-20th century, Florida botanist Lena B. Smithers Hughes introduced major improvements to the Valencia orange, developing virus-free strains for budwood production. These were so successful that, by 1983, the Hughes Valencia bud line made up some 60 percent of all Valencia oranges propagated for cultivation in Florida. [2]
In 1988, Merleen Smith, a woman in Ventura County, California, contacted her local farm advisor on the suspicion that her neighbor was poisoning her tree. Investigators found that it was a pigmented bud sport of a conventional Valencia orange tree. The orange cultivar 'Smith Red Valencia' (with red insides) now bears her name. [3]
Primarily grown for processing and orange juice production, Valencia oranges have seeds, varying in number from zero to nine per fruit. Its excellent taste and internal color make it desirable for the fresh fruit markets, too. The fruit has an average diameter of 2.7 to 3 inches (69 to 76 mm; 6.9 to 7.6 cm), and a piece of this fruit which weighs 96 grams (3.4 oz) has 45 calories and 9 grams of sugar. [4] After bloom, it usually carries two crops on the tree, the old and the new. The commercial harvest season in Florida runs from March to June. Worldwide, Valencia oranges are prized as the only variety of orange in season during summer.
In 2012, the genome of the orange was sequenced, and was found to have 29,445 protein-coding genes. It was also found that the sweet orange originated from a backcross hybrid between pomelo and mandarin orange. [5]
The Valencia orange undergoes nucellar embryony in both fertilized and unfertilized conditions of the ovule.
This cultivar was discovered by A. G. Hamlin near Glenwood, Florida, in 1879. The fruit is small, smooth, not highly colored, and juicy, with a pale yellow colored juice, especially in fruits that come from lemon rootstock. The fruit may be seedless, or may contain a number of small seeds. The tree is high-yielding and cold-tolerant and it produces good quality fruit, which is harvested from October to December. It thrives in humid subtropical climates. In cooler, more arid areas, the trees produce fruit too small for commercial use. Trees from groves in hammocks or areas covered with pine forest are budded on sour orange trees, a method that gives a high solids content. On sand, they are grafted on rough lemon rootstock. [6] The Hamlin orange has been one of the most popular juice oranges in Florida and replaced the Parson Brown variety as the principal early-season juice orange. [7]
Kumquats, or cumquats in Australian English, are a group of small, angiosperm, fruit-bearing trees in the family Rutaceae. Their taxonomy is disputed. They were previously classified as forming the now-historical genus Fortunella or placed within Citrus, sensu lato. Different classifications have alternatively assigned them to anywhere from a single species, Citrus japonica, to numerous species representing each cultivar. Recent genomic analysis defines three pure species, Citrus hindsii, C. margarita and C. crassifolia, with C. × japonica being a hybrid of the last two.
Citrus is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the family Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes.
A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree Mangifera indica. It originated from the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. M. indica has been cultivated in South and Southeast Asia since ancient times resulting in two types of modern mango cultivars: the "Indian type" and the "Southeast Asian type". Other species in the genus Mangifera also produce edible fruits that are also called "mangoes", the majority of which are found in the Malesian ecoregion.
A clementine is a tangor, a citrus fruit hybrid between a willowleaf mandarin orange and a sweet orange, named in honor of Clément Rodier, a French missionary who first discovered and propagated the cultivar in Algeria. The exterior is a deep orange colour with a smooth, glossy appearance. Clementines can be separated into 7 to 14 segments. Similar to tangerines, they tend to be easy to peel. They are typically juicy and sweet, with less acid than oranges. Their oils, like other citrus fruits, contain mostly limonene as well as myrcene, linalool, α-pinene and many complex aromatics.
The tangelo, Citrus × tangelo, is a citrus fruit hybrid of a Citrus reticulata variety, such as mandarin orange or tangerine, and a Citrus maxima variety, such as a pomelo or grapefruit. The name is a portmanteau of 'tangerine' and 'pomelo'.
Citrus production encompasses the production of citrus fruit, which are the highest-value fruit crop in terms of international trade. There are two main markets for citrus fruit:
The navel orange is a variety of orange with a characteristic second fruit at the apex, which protrudes slightly like a human navel. This variety first was caused by a mutation in an orange tree, and first appeared in the early 19th century at a monastery in Bahia, Brazil. The mutation caused the orange to develop a second fruit at its base, opposite the stem, embedded within the peel of the primary orange. This mutation also caused it to be seedless, meaning the only way the plant can be propogated is by cutting and grafting.
Citrus unshiu is a semi-seedless and easy-peeling citrus species, also known as the satsuma mandarin or Japanese mandarin. During the Edo period of Japan, kishu mikans were more popular because there was a popular superstition that eating Citrus unshiu without seeds made people prone to infertility. Citrus unshiu became popular in Japan after modernization started in the Meiji period. It was introduced to the West from the Satsuma region of Japan in 1878.
The limequat is a citrus hybrid that is the result of a cross between the Key lime and the kumquat, hybridized by Walter Tennyson Swingle in 1909.
Lue Gim Gong was a Chinese-American horticulturalist. Known as "The Citrus Wizard", he is remembered for his contribution to the orange-growing industry in Florida.
Persian lime, also known by other common names such as seedless lime, Bearss lime and Tahiti lime, is a citrus fruit species of hybrid origin, known only in cultivation. The Persian lime is a triploid cross between Key lime and lemon.
The blood orange is a variety of orange with crimson, near blood-colored flesh. It is one of the sweet orange varieties. It is also known as the raspberry orange.
The oroblanco, oro blanco, or sweetie is a citrus hybrid, resulting from a cross between an acidless pomelo and a Marsh grapefruit. Its fruit is oblate and mostly seedless, with a thick rind that remains green long after it has already matured. It has a sweet, mild taste, and lacks the bitterness generally associated with grapefruit. It requires less heat to grow than other varieties of grapefruit and are harvestable sooner. Oroblancos grown in moderate climates tend to yield the highest-quality fruit.
Ponkan ; Citrus poonensis; "Chinese Honey Orange") is a high-yield sweet Citrus cultivar with large fruits in the size of an orange. It is a citrus hybrid, though it was once thought to be a pure mandarin.
The mandarinquat, also misleadingly called orangequat, is any cross between a mandarin and a kumquat. Mandarinquats are members of the citrofortunella group.
The orange, also called sweet orange to distinguish it from the bitter orange, is the fruit of a tree in the family Rutaceae. Botanically, this is the hybrid Citrus × sinensis, between the pomelo and the mandarin orange. The chloroplast genome, and therefore the maternal line, is that of pomelo. There are many related hybrids including of mandarins and sweet orange. The sweet orange has had its full genome sequenced.
Diospyros kaki, the Oriental persimmon, Chinese persimmon, Japanese persimmon or kaki persimmon, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Diospyros. Although its first botanical description was not published until 1780, D. kaki cultivation in China dates back more than 2000 years.
The kishu mikan, from Japanese Kishū mikan (紀州蜜柑), is a hybrid variety of mikan, or mandarin orange, found in Southern China and also grown in Japan.
The Midknight Valencia orange is a South African variety of the Valencia orange. Its exact origin is unknown, however, around 1927, this variety was first noticed, growing among Valencia orange trees in an orchard at Addo, Eastern Cape, South Africa by A.P. Knight whom the orange was later named after. In following years, more observations were made documenting characteristics of the orange and coming to the conclusion that it should be considered a variety of the Valencia orange.
Kanpei, also known as Ehime queen splash, is a Citrus cultivar that originated in Japan.
