How to Germinate an Orange Seed

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By Flybyknight
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Germinated orange seeds.

Have you ever wanted your own orange tree? Its the perfect hobby for the Summer! I have never been too keen on eating oranges but this spring I discovered that eating an orange in the morning drastically reduced my sensitivity to allergens. So I decided to try and grow an orange tree from the seed. Here is how I did it. Its a really neat process.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

medium zip-lock bag
fresh orange
damp paper towel
bowl
windowsill.
A little patience
Fingernail Clippers

Step 1

cut open your orange and remove the seeds. Promptly place them in a bowl of water at room temperature over night. The next day it will be time to remove the outer white covering of the seed. Fingernails are helpful in this process. Its a little tedious because the seeds are so slippery and hard to keep hold of. Put the seed on a towel or a bath cloth to help it stay put. Try to punch a hole in the white covering with your fingernails and pull it apart without damaging the seed inside or gently cut the edge with a knife or scissors or fingernail clippers.
Step 2

Once the white cover is removed. You will have a pale brown seed with a smooth but graspable surface. Remove the white cover from all of your seeds. dampen a paper-towel and fold it in half. Place the seeds between the fold and put the whole thing in a zip-lock bag. *Leave the bag open!* A lot of people writing these tree germination articles online don't stress this enough.
Step 3

Place the zip-lock bag with your seeds tucked in the damp paper towel in a warm sunny window. Check every day to make sure the paper towel is damp but not soaked. Your seeds should start opening up in about 7 to 14 days. I germinated 3 orange seeds this way. All of them did fine. I found this to be a really fun experience.
Step 4

Orange seeling with tomato plants shading it.

If you want to take it one step further grab a some planter trays or some empty yogurt containers. (they make excellent planters) poke two small drainage holes in the bottom and fill with seed starter or potting mix. Place your seed in the yogurt container and cover the whole seed case and make sure your seedling stem is above the soil. place it outside on your porch or in a sunny window. shade it from direct mid-day sunlight and in a couple of weeks you'll have two small green leaves on your orange tree. It probably wont produce fruit like the orange you took it from but who knows... it could be even better. It will be years before the fruit appears but I hear that orange trees give off a wonderful fragrance even before they produce fruit. remember to move your tree indoors if you have cold winters if possible. I hope you have fun with this. I am!
Step 5

Please leave a comment if this article was helpful or interesting to you. I like to know what people think of my articles good or bad.

Comments

philemmin said

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on 11/23/2009 Why waste a zip lock bag and leave it open ?

h2oplease said

on 10/31/2009 Never had luck with orange seeds before. I sure will try this method. Thanks for the clearly written instructions.

botticelli728 said

on 8/22/2009 I'm definitely going to try this. 5*

soanyway said

on 8/21/2009 How fun! I am trying to do this with 2 appricot seeds...nothing is happening and it's been 2 weeks! I just placed them in a sunny spot so maybe that will help! Did you mean that an orange a day helps to keep allergies away? I have recomn'd you. Pay it forward to all! ;-)