The Tropical Fruit Forum

A very beautiful tree. Do you regard "Rio Red Grapefruit" as a cold hardy citrus? What temperatures did it endure?

My Marumi kumquat is fruiting now and the fruits taste so good. The fruits are juicy and the larger fruits measure up to 35 mm. Most are seedless.  I am not a fan of store bought Nagami kumquats and my expectations have been rather low. How good it tastes is all the more surprising. The plant bears around 30 fruits. Many are still unripe. The plant was inside a cold house during winter and there was not much growth and fruit development, from November until February. Now, it bears flowers and fruits in all stages, at the same time. I need more of these fruits.

Plant number six, second row.

can't be Yuzu Strada Montana, because my plant isn't mature yet.

The first one is definitely not a Yuzu. Some papeda, probably ichangensis.

Indeed, the plants are very different. Beside the differences already mentioned, the first plant has distinctive pale green leaves. Further, the citrusy smell of crushed leaves is not as perceivable as in the true Yuzu.

Many people use tropical wood and don´t know about it.
http://www.tft-earth.org/stories/news/barbecue-watch-film/

Two weeks ago, one of my Meiwa kumquat cotyledons disappeared. This week, the second cotyledon died as well. Possibly, the soil was too wet, causing a fungus gnat infestation. The seeds were germinated in January 2015. The cotyledons reached an age of 2 years and 10 months. They neither produced leaves nor roots.

Mistakes happen. The first plant always produced grapefruit-like leaves. The second Minneola always produced elongated leaves with narrow petioles. I was surprised to see the leaves of the second plant to change to more or less grapefruit-like leaves, this season. I have crushed some leaves. The smell of both plants reminds me on Minneola, rather than grapefruit. Most leaves of Minneola in citrus idtools.org are of the elongated type. However, there is also a leaf shown, with a wide petiole.

The second Minneola with different leaf shapes.

This year, my two mature Ugni molinae plants did give me a nice and plentiful crop. Both plants are about the same age and size. This gave the opportunity to compare these two varieties. The broad-leaved Ugni on the left and the Ugni Elite on the right side.



Previously, I have called the left plant also large-leaved Ugni.   http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=21253.msg263364#msg263364. However, I prefer the term “broad-leaved”, because the leaves are not so much larger, but considerably broader, compared to some other varieties. The plants grow in roughly 14 liter (3 gallon) pots in a sand/peat mix.
The broad-leaved Ugni gave 110 fruits, weighing altogether 52 g. Ugni Elite gave 256 fruits, weighing altogether 94 g. The average weight of one fruit compares to 0.47 g for the broad-leaved Ugni and 0.37 g for the Ugni Elite.



Bearing so small fruits, Ugni molinae is not a species for commercial fruit production, but is charming with taste and specialness. As regards taste, I prefer Ugni Elite, which is sweeter.
This was the first year, which did give a reasonable harvest. Enough, to share the fruits with my wife. Never seen any Ugni before, she asked: “Where did you get these cowberries from?” I responded:  “That aren´t cowberries. Just taste”. Interesting her comments:  “Mmmh, so good.” And after a while. “These berries remind a bit of rose pepper” (Schinus terebinthifolia, Schinus molle) “and also a bit of juniper berry” (Juniperus communis).

My two Feijoa seedling plants, planted in ground three years ago, survived this last winter with a very cold January, and passive protection only. This January 2017, minimum temperatures between -10°C (14°F) and -18°C (0°F) were officially measured on 14 nights. I intend to write a thread about passive frost protection.

SoCal2warm, an argument like “There were no triploids resulting from meiosis. This suggests…” certainly will be accepted. It is also your style of argumentation which leads to dissent and disagreement.  I don´t want to discourage you. I am sure, the more you learn about genetics the better will be your conclusions. Your arguments will improve and will be than more widely accepted.

This is my only seedling. Nine months old. Seeds from Birdman. Hope it fruits by itself, when old enough. The smell of crushed leaves reminds me on bubblegum.