Naartjie-Citrus unishiu

[stuartdaly88]

This is one of my favorite citrus fruits and extremly popular in my country. The best examples are extremly sweet and juicy. The nice thing about this fruit is the peel is mostly separate from the fruit and can be peeled off by hand very quickly. Also the fruit is in a few segments that can be separated and popped in the mouth without getting sticky juice on your hands:)
Anyone else growing this?
How productive is it?
Here is my grafted plant I think it's on rough lemon rootstock as that's what we mostly use here.




It's put on so much new growth since it got warmer. It sailed through a very cold winter without any damage at all. Temperature was down to at least -3C on a few nights. I heard it can take down  to -6 though.

[Radoslav]

Unshiu also called satsuma mandarins are very productive, but have tendency to alternate bearing. So, the year with big harvest is usually followed by small, or no crop next season.
As you said, it is cold tolerant and this is why it is popular tree in orchards in Croatia for example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_unshiu

In Japan, unshiu mandarins are divided in to the three groups depending to time of ripening.:

Goku Wase  - ultra early cultivars like Wakayama 
Wase - early cultivars like Miyagawa
Owari- late cultivars like Owari or Saigon

[stuartdaly88]

Unshiu also called satsuma mandarins are very productive, but have tendency to alternate bearing. So, the year with big harvest is usually followed by small, or no crop next season.
As you said, it is cold tolerant and this is why it is popular tree in orchards in Croatia for example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_unshiu

In Japan, unshiu mandarins are divided in to the three groups depending to time of ripening.:

Goku Wase  - ultra early cultivars like Wakayama 
Wase - early cultivars like Miyagawa
Owari- late cultivars like Owari or Saigon

Thank you for the info!
I have no idea what variety this is the nursery just named it 'naartjie' the local name here. Problem with nurseries is customers don't seem to care or even know about cultivators to a large degree:(

It is full of blooms now any advice should I remove them while it's still this size? I really love these fruits they taste like what I think orange should taste intensely sweet and complex orange flavour just enough acidity to be nicely thirst quenching. Iv found the seeded ones often taste better. The peel almost falls off I often remove it all in one piece to make less mess!

I would like a Goku Wase cultivator now for the very silly reason that Goku was the name of my favorite anime character as a child:p
Bit I'm sure having a few different cultivators can overcome the alternate bearing problems?
Need to get myself to a citrus farm down here see what cultivators we have. It's a major crop here I'm sure there must be some varieties unique to S.A:)

[Radoslav]

The most popular Goku Wase cultivar here in home collections is Wakayama (in the US, this cultivar is called Xie Shan mandarin).
It flowers in spring /March and it is ripe before the winter comes (ripening time september/october).
Very early commercial cultivar in Spain is Iwasaki
http://www.viverossevilla.com/citricos/index.php?id=16&tipo=mandarino

[buddinman]

This is good information, I have XIE  Shan in my yard. It is one of the best satsumas. Did not now it be the other name until now.

[Radoslav]

"Thomas Chao, in the cited publication, states that 'Xie Shan' is a Chinese translation of a Japanese cv called 'Wakayama'."
http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/xieshan.html

[Millet]

I have several  Xie Shan Satsuma trees in my collection.   Currently I am growing 40 +- citrus varieties and have long thought that Xie Shan is the best tasting of them all.  A wonderful citrus variety.  I highly recomend growing  it. - Millet

[stuartdaly88]

Naartjie coming into season.in S.A:)
Here are some I bought today the two on the left shop bought and the right traffic light vendor


I'm really sad I can't find out what varieties they are the shop bought just say "sweet easy peel".
The two on the right from the street vendor were very soft and easy to squish but still good. The two on the right from the shop were nice and firm very sweet and juicy and super easy to peel by hand.

Both were good and had no seeds at all I really hope my tree produces fruit that taste even half as good as these I don't mind if they are seeded:)







Can anyone ID the cultivators just from the fruit?

[buddinman]

There is another very small mandarin, Kishu, that is a great one. Have never seen a person that did not like it.