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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[5] The Valencia orange undergoes nucellar embryony in both fertilized and unfertilized conditions of the ovule.

The tree is high-yielding and cold-tolerant and it produces good quality fruit, which is harvested from October to December.