Author Topic: 2016 harvest  (Read 3064 times)

Tom

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2016 harvest
« on: December 10, 2016, 07:46:27 PM »
I've picked all the Meyer lemons from my largest in ground tree and I got 310 Meyer lemons. My 3 in ground satsumas totaled 321 fruit so far with about 25 still hanging but green. I had 84 Kishu fruits on one in ground bush about 4 years old to me. In ground for only two years. Maybe grown and grafted 2 years before I got it so really 6 years old. Kishu is definitely my favorite so far.

I had various smaller numbers on other potted satsumas including 20 Xie Shan fruits and 6 New Zealand Lemonade fruits. I keep a variegated Eurika Lemonade tree and a Ponderosa lemon to show off if I get asked to speak to a garden club. The 3 large in ground satsumas are nameless because I've lost track of their variety names. Their rootstock is not flying dragon because the trees keep getting too big for me and I keep trimming them back. Quality has not been great but they have had huge satsuma fruit.

So far I have not had an 'off' year with any of my citrus. I think all my pruning has caused my fruit to be unusually large. I wish the satsumas were smaller because the smaller ones taste better to me.

We are going from a predicted low of 23* F this morning to a predicted high of 70* early next week.

How is the harvest going for everybody else ?

Tom

Citradia

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Re: 2016 harvest
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2016, 08:02:49 PM »






I've harvested 3 trifoliata fruit and planted seeds for future rootstock effort s. I've harvested several buckets of Kimbrough and owari satsumas and still have more on trees. All of mine are in ground. My Meiwa are still not ripe, nor is my one crocston fruit, so they are well protected under plastic until harvest in spring. My lows the past two days have been 19 degrees with high of 44.

Millet

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Re: 2016 harvest
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2016, 02:22:00 PM »
Tom you had a big harvest this year. Congratulations.  Meyer lemons certainly are vigorous trees. With that many lemons, you must have juiced and frozen the juice for later use.  My new in-ground Marsh grapefruit fruited for the first time this past season with three nice sized fruit.  They are just now starting to turn color.  I will not pick them until March.  The Ponkan has too many fruit to count.  I ate the first one just this morning.  They are not quite ready yet, perhaps another couple weeks. This is the second year that the Saint Dominic Sour orange has fruited, perhaps 40 fruit.  Probably enough to make marmalade.  This is also the first time my in ground Valentine pummelo fruited with 3 fruit, all in a single bunch.  Next year  should produce a much better crop. My oldest tree is an in ground Cara Cara. It produced a bumper crop with fruit well distributed throughout the tree.  Its a bit early to pick them, perhaps in a couple more weeks.  I planted a Dekopon in the ground three years a go. It produced two fruit last year, and 15 this year.  It will be a couple months before I pick them.  From what I read March will be about the right time to try eating one. .  The Dekopon certainly produces very large sized fruit.    I did pick and eat some green Finger limes this morning.  I like the crunchiness and acidic taste they provide.  Would be a good fruit with fish.  Logees has red Finger lime for sale, I'm thinking of purchasing one to keep the green Finger lime company.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2016, 10:50:26 PM by Millet »

Tom

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Re: 2016 harvest
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2016, 04:39:58 PM »
Millet, I gave away most of the Meyer lemons and 2/3 of the satsumas at a master gardener outreach called Lunch and Learn the first Wednesday of each month. It was a surprise and about 50 people went nuts over the free fruit ! So far I have not had to get into the juicing and freezing for long term use. It's been a lot of fun giving them away. Most people really love the Meyer lemons.

My Juanita had about 6 fruit this year and they were surprisingly good tasting. Kishu is still my favorite. My different size Owari all taste good but different. Same thing with my different age Xie Shans. Different size satsumas bushes  are giving me different size fruit that taste different. The big inground trees have some huge rough fruit, maybe from the extensive pruning to maintain small tree size. The smaller satsumas always taste better to me unless they are tiny satsuma knots. The tiny knots don't count. They are either late pollinated fruit that had to hustle to get going this summer or poorly pollinated for some other reason. All most all the satsumas are guaranteed to have at least 5 seed or even more. One or more of the big trees might be on borrowed time.....the Meyer is safe because it has the most fruit !

Tom
« Last Edit: December 11, 2016, 04:44:48 PM by Tom »

Radoslav

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Re: 2016 harvest
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2016, 08:08:58 AM »
This year I experimented with the time of collection of crop. And I found that in my conditions the best quality within all cultivars except citrus nobilis I can reach, if I do not collect them immediately in the winter or next spring, when they look ripe, but in the summer (fruits  from previous year spring flowering) . After some stagnation all fruits continued to absorb water during this summer and become juicy again and the level of sugar was  maximal.
Some fruits from this year spring flowering, which I will let on tree until next year summer to see if my thoughts  are right:

clementina Corsica


Citrus sp. Grusevydnij


Hassaku


Khao Pan


Marsh seedless


Citrus sp. Melinghina


Tangelo Sampson