You often see these fruits 🍊 at supermarkets and the like, but did you know that they start as flowers that eventually develop into fruit?
Organic 🍊 cultivation in May. It’s the blooming season for mandarin oranges 🌸, and some farmers even say that the success of the harvest is determined at this stage—that’s how important these mandarin orange 🍊 flowers 🌸 are.
In early May, small white flowers with a strong scent similar to jasmine reach full bloom, attracting bees 🐝 for pollination. From mid-May onward, the flowers begin to fall, the stigma at the center detaches, and numerous green young fruits appear. Cultivation-wise, it’s ideal to have finished most of the flower thinning by this point, but it seems that about 90% of the fruit will undergo physiological drop (falling off naturally).
To ensure a consistent annual yield of mandarin oranges 🍊, the key is maintaining a balance between flowers 🌸 and buds 🌱. The cycle repeats, with buds from this year producing flowers the following year; more flowers mean more fruit (fewer flowers mean fewer fruits—perhaps similar to the relationship between “on-year” and “off-year” crops). The flowering 🌸 season is when the results of this cycle become visibly apparent.
After this, as temperatures rise, the trees (shoots and roots) will grow over the next six months, the fruit will mature, and we will continue with appropriate fertilization and weeding until harvest time around December.
We will not only focus on the mandarin oranges and their processed products, but also on when, where, and how they were grown. Through the cultivation of safe, secure, and flavorful organic mandarin oranges 🍊 in Ehime Prefecture, we hope to inspire you to want to try them—both as fruit and in beverages.
スーパー等でよく見る果物🍊、関心がないと知らないかもしれませんが、果物は花が咲いてその中から果実が出てくるんですね。
5月の有機🍊栽培。みかん🌸開花時期ですが、この時点で収穫勝負がついているという農家さんもいるほど、みかん🍊の花🌸大事なようです。
初旬に白色の小さな花でジャスミンに似た強い香りの花が満開を迎え、蜜蜂🐝も授粉にやってきます。
中旬以降、花が散りはじめ花の中心にあった柱頭が外れ緑色の幼果が沢山登場します。栽培的にはこのタイミングで主な摘蕾は終えているのが理想だそうですが、実の9割程が生理落下（自然に落下）するようです。
毎年みかん🍊の一定収量を確保するためには花🌸と芽🌱のバランスがポイントだそうです。今年出た芽に翌年花がつくといったように芽と花を繰り返し、花が多い＝実が沢山つくそうです（花が少ない＝実が少ない、いわゆる表年と裏年の関係性でしょうか）。その成果が目に見えてわかるのがこの開花🌸時期ということでしょう。
この後、気温上昇とともに半年かけて木（芽や根）が成長し果実が成熟し12月頃に収穫を迎えるまで、適宜、施肥や草刈りが続きます。
みかんやその加工品を食べるだけでなく、いつ、どんなところで、どのように育ったかをクローズアップして参ります。
安心安全で旨み豊かな愛媛県有機みかん🍊栽培を通じて、皆様に食べてみたい、飲んでみたいと感じでいただけたら幸いです。
次回からは有機肥料の使い勝手やコスト感、慣行栽培との違いをクローズアップしてきますね🍊。