How oranges are grown and harvested

Every commercial orange tree is a graft, and ripe oranges are often gassed with ethylene to turn them orange.

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The short version

Orange trees are propagated by grafting a bud from a mature variety onto a rootstock grown from seed, so every tree gives identical fruit. Oranges are picked when mature, often by shaking the tree canopy with a machine. Green skin may be turned orange afterward with ethylene gas.

Graft onto rootstock

Growers first raise a rootstock from seed. When it is about one year old, the leafy top is cut off and a bud from a mature cultivar is attached, which guarantees the same yield and fruit traits and disease resistance every year.
Shake the canopy

Canopy-shaking machines are used increasingly in Florida. They push tines six to seven feet long through the tree to shake the fruit down at a steady stroke and frequency. Oranges are picked once pale orange.
Degreen with ethylene

Ripe oranges often have green or yellow-green skin. Ethylene gas turns the skin orange, a step called degreening, gassing, sweating or curing. Laws forbid harvesting immature fruit for human consumption in several US states.

End of the lineOranges Next it goes into perfume, orange juice, cola.

Worth repeating

Citrus greening disease has been the most serious threat to orange production since 2010, and in affected areas trees live only five to eight years.
Oranges can be stored in controlled-atmosphere chambers for up to twelve weeks after harvest.
The earliest mention of the sweet orange is in Chinese literature in 314 BC.