The Tropical Fruit Forum

Citrus => Cold Hardy Citrus => Topic started by: Citradia on May 22, 2017, 05:00:09 PM

Title: Dunstan wins prize for most cold hardy hybrid here.
Post by: Citradia on May 22, 2017, 05:00:09 PM
Out of all my citrange/ hybrids, the dunstan is the only one to survive last winter unscathed weather in high tunnel or totally exposed in the open, my Dunstans are full leaf now and others are at best starting to come back at base of trunk: all of these trees did well this winter, staying green in high tunnel with water barrels even after a low of 7 degrees F, until we had warm weather all February followed by low of 14 degrees and then 16 degrees the following night in late March/ early April. Ironically, the Dunstans did not have water barrels, even the one on the west end of high tunnel. My theory is that even though I vented the tunnel with doors open on both ends when above freezing, the tunnel still made it warm enough in February to break dormancy on all but the dunstan and then when the 14 degree low hit, even with the closed tunnel and water barrels, it was too much cold for trees starting to sprout new growth.  A citradia that was uncovered all winter with only a barrel for additional heat, looks better now than the bigger citradia in the tunnel. I think next year I won't use tunnel and just let the fittest survive. In the pics the green tree at end of tunnel frame is dunstan,and the losers are as followes: Ichang lemons x2, Thomasville, pink FL grapefruit seedling (totally dead), citradia, rusk, Nansho Dai Dai, mortan.
(https://s12.postimg.cc/hc8zcub15/IMG_5128.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/image/hc8zcub15/)

(https://s12.postimg.cc/3jz5uy9nd/IMG_5130.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/image/3jz5uy9nd/)
Title: Re: Dunstan wins prize for most cold hardy hybrid here.
Post by: Florian on May 24, 2017, 03:48:28 PM
Interesting results, thanks for sharing.
Title: Re: Dunstan wins prize for most cold hardy hybrid here.
Post by: eyeckr on May 24, 2017, 04:05:31 PM
Thanks for the info!