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Messages - Walt

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51
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: fusion power vs citrus trees
« on: September 02, 2022, 09:13:48 AM »
And all of this is due to fusion power in the sun.  With a lot of help from the greenhouse effect. 
When I was growing up, temperatures of 100F made the news reports now and then.  People would talk about it for days.  But this summer we had 100+ (40-45C) day after day, week after week.  I got really tired of it.  And the garden suffered from it.  Other places had it much worse, of course.

52
If the scion dies of cold, replace it with a hardier scion.

53
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Meyer lemon
« on: September 01, 2022, 01:18:30 PM »
I believe Meyer lemon is zygotic, so the fruit will not be exactly like a Meyer.  If the fruit isn't good, you have a nice tree to graft other varieties onto.

54
Or plant the seeds and learn to graft mature scions or buds onto it.  Or learn to micrograft on very young seedlins.  The would be the quickest way to get fruit from a seed you pllanted.  But even then it wouldn't be quite as good as the varieties selected as good root stocks.  That depends some on where you are.

55
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: fusion power vs citrus trees
« on: August 29, 2022, 11:10:37 AM »
Actually, when I started working on cold hardy citrus, I thought they were 30 years away.  Now I'm thinking as little as 5 years away.  Maybe.
Fusion power?  Maybe in my life time.  But I plan to live a long time.

56
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: new thoughts on breeding hardier citrus
« on: August 26, 2022, 02:11:31 PM »
Ponciris does ripen fruit here in zone 6.  OK, what good is a ripe fruit that tastes awful?  But the genes are there for ripening before hard freeze.  I think that there will be those trees that can ripen better tasting fruit before freezing.  Then keep selecting for sweeter less acid fruit.
When I was just starting out.  I slowly ate 4 P. trifoliata fruits, trying to ignore the resin and acid flavors and concentrate on the other flavors.  The orange flavors are there.  We just need to select for more sugar and less acid.  The resinous flavor is said to be lacking in Ponciris+.

57
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: new thoughts on breeding hardier citrus
« on: August 26, 2022, 03:32:31 AM »
I agree that once a good tasting winter hardy citrus is developed, others will soon follow.  And we may not be the first to do it.  There is a man in Tennessee working on winter hardy kumquats.  Given that kumquats are generally more cold hardy than most citrus, and that he is in zone 7 I think, he could be the first.  And there may be others out there working on bringing citrus north.  In fact, I mentioned earlier in this thread that finger lime x Ponciris+  F1 might be liked by some people with a taste for sour bits in their salads or whatever.

And the list of results from your work that came much quicker than I thought possible is precocity.  I bought an Etrog to use as a source of genes for precocity.  Then you report that some of your F2 plants are precocious.
I aim to get the seedless gene from Kishu into my breeding.  That is all the outcrossing that might be needed other than what we already have on hand.

58
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: new thoughts on breeding hardier citrus
« on: August 25, 2022, 03:32:28 PM »
For years, while I was a professional plant breeder, I had a list of ideas I wanted to work on, but my employers didn't see any money in them.  One of them was winter hardy citrus for the zone I was in.  Zone 6.
Now "retired", I'm working on that list of things I wanted to breed.  Especially the hardy citrus.  Especially mandarins.  Yes, I want them for myself.  But also there is the challenge.
When I first posted about it here, Kumin posted about his 20,000 seedlings from C-35 citrange.  Out of 3,000 zygotic seedlings he got 12 that have come through 3 winters now in Pennsylvania.  Same zone as I'm in.  I had not believed it could happen in the F2.  I had expected to have to backcross to P. trifoliata to recover winter hardiness.  So Kumin showed it was much easier than I thought possible. 
And here I learned about Ponciris+ which lacks the resin flavor.  So what I had thought would take at least a couple of generations had been done for me.
Now the paper I linked to above says, if I understand correctly, that sweetness won't be as hard to get as I had thought.
Nothing against breeding and growing dwarf citrus.  That has brought joy to generations of people.  But it is not what I'm about.  Likewise, Kumin, Ilya, Mikkel, and other who I know less about.  I'm sorry to the ones that didn't come to mind just now.

59
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: new thoughts on breeding hardier citrus
« on: August 23, 2022, 09:45:58 PM »
I googled Inheritance of sweetness in citrus.  Got this along with much other information.
https://phys.org/news/2019-02-identification-genes-responsible-sour-citrus.html
It seems that much of the sweetness is due to 2 genes.  nd the differences in amount of sweetness is due differences in gene mutations in the genes that turn on and off those 2 genes.  If I read this right, it will be easier to get sweet hardy citrus than I could have dreamed of.
Did I read this right??

60
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: new thoughts on breeding hardier citrus
« on: August 18, 2022, 11:13:12 AM »
My thoughts on breeding hardy citrus is it might make sense to try to cross Changsha mandarin with Dunstan citrumelo.
I'm in the PNW, climate zone 8a, and these two varieties have been the ones that have seemed to survive the best in this climate. The others got almost completely wiped out after temperatures went down a little colder than usual. I have trialed a lot of different hardy varieties.

Neither are hardy in my climate.  But if both are hardy in your climate, try it.  I'll be trying cirtrumelos x Kumin's hardy selections from C35 F2 selections.  And Changsha is a parent of 3 of my citandarins in my breeding stock.
I have freezing temperatures 24 hours a day for as much as a week at a time most winters.  Yjough yje last two winters have been milder, getting abve freezing most days.

61
Citrus General Discussion / Re: How to cut mandarin tree
« on: August 03, 2022, 10:02:30 PM »
There is another way to induce branching.  I learned this from North American Fruit Explores. 
Above an axilary bud that you want to start growing a branch, make a cut in through the bark, through the cambium, and just into the wood.  That prevent the auxin from the apical bud from coming down and affecting that bud.  So it (usually) grows into a branch.  This way of shaping a tree requires too much labor to use on an orchard.  But it wouldn't take a lot of labor on one tree.
NAFEX  said use a 3 corner file to make a notch.  I used a single edge razor blade. 
I have never used this method on citrus.  But back when I was doing bonsai, I tried it on a wisteria seedling.  I got a branch from EVERY leaf.
Of course, you never go wrong following Kumin's or Millet's advice.  Their experience is actually with citrus.

62
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: F2 citrange winter hardiness trial
« on: July 25, 2022, 12:37:28 PM »
Highest success rate with embryo culture was at 95 days post pollination. 
If they don't look like there will be viable seeds and you don't want to cover the mother plants and don't want to set up an embryo culture lab (not as hard as it sounds), you could send me the fruits and I could try.  I have never embryo cultured anything but barley and iris.  But it is much the same.

https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/agronomy/agronomy-10-01940/article_deploy/agronomy-10-01940.pdf?version=1607580009

This paper is on using embryo culture to rescue hybrid embryos in crosses that produce lots of nucellar embryos.  Having only one embryo per seed should make it even easier.

63
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: F2 citrange winter hardiness trial
« on: July 25, 2022, 12:14:05 PM »
I wonder how far along a citrus seed has to be to be viable.  Barley seeds are viable at 2 weeks post pollination, even though the seed coat looks pretty empty.
Do you have plans to extend the season by covering the mother plants for a while?
Have you thought about embryo culture if the seeds are too immature?

64
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Kumquat x Poncirus
« on: July 01, 2022, 10:21:16 AM »
The Riverside citrus collection has 2 accessions of hindsii.  Each came to them labled as tetrapliud.  Chromosomr counts of both showed they are diploid.

65
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: new thoughts on breeding hardier citrus
« on: June 26, 2022, 02:48:55 PM »
Last year about this time, a farm supply store was selling citrus marked way down because it was late in the season.  The trees looked healthy, so I bought a kumquat tree. 
A couple days ago I was there again and there was a kumquat with many flower buds and it was only $7 so I bought it.  II took it home and put it by last years kumquat.  I then saw that my "kumquat" from last year has trifoliate leaves!  I have read many times on this forum that any trifoliate leaves mean it is P. trifoliata or its hybrid.  So I googled kumquat leaves pictures.  My new blooming tree is really a kumquat.  My old tree must be a rootstock whose scion didn't take and no one at the nursery noticed.
So it has been a few days and I'm about over feeling stupid. 
I have nothing else in bloom or buds.  I'd really like to pollinate these flowers with Hong Kong, Kishu seedless mandarin, or Ponciris trifoliata.  I doubt such pollen is being produced this time of year but I thought I'd ask.

66
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: new thoughts on breeding hardier citrus
« on: June 15, 2022, 11:37:55 AM »
No.  A few days after I posted, there was wind that broke tree branches all over  town.  No damage to my citrus except the (very few) flowers were gone.  I had good bloom later on Laaz Fast Flowering Ponciris but nothing to use the pollen on.

67
Thanks for the advice, Ilya.
Citrange, I'm hoping  to use its pollen.  It is my understanding that the FFP has only nucelar seeds.  And I am aware that no one has succeeded in transferring the fast flowering trait to any decendants other than its own nucellar seedlings.  I am not aware of any seedlings from its pollen and back-crossed again with FFP pollen.  If the trait is genetic it could show up in that generation.

68
Finally the Fast Flowering Ponciris I got from Laaz last summer is showing new growth.  There are 5 tiny new branches with leaves.  The longest is about one cm., which is really small, but it the start of new growth,

69
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: new thoughts on breeding hardier citrus
« on: May 31, 2022, 10:23:50 AM »
Finally the Fast Flowering Ponciris I got from Laaz last summer is showing new growth.  There are 5 tiny new branches with leaves.  The longest is about one cm., which is really small, but it the start of new growth,  It is over a month behind my older established trees.  I believe this is due to transplant shock, not that these trees will always be late starting growth in the spring.Actually I'd be glad if it was late leafing in the spring.  I think that would make it less likely to be hurt be late frost.  But I think it is just due to transplant.
I don't know whether it will bloom this year.  I know it is old enough because it had 3 fruit on it when it arrived last summer.

70
My FFP hasn't leafed out yet either, yjough trunk and branches look good.  Ponciris+ just started leaves a week ago, so I'm not worried yet.

71
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: new thoughts on breeding hardier citrus
« on: May 12, 2022, 10:47:27 PM »
3 weeks ago my pure P. trifoliata that I've had in the ground for several years first broke domorancy
US 852, 1279, 1281, and 1282, Ponciris+ seedlings  Laaz Fast Flowering, Ponciris and 3 seedlings from Kumin, and a couple of citromelos and Bishop citandarin were all protected but went dormant due to quite cool conditions.  But now all are growing, except Laaz FFP  It looks healthy so I think it will start next week.
Changsha and a kumquat stayed in leaf but with little or no growth until last week.
I lost Kishu Seedless and Etrog I think.
I'll be grafting Kumin's seedlings onto in ground Pt, but continue to protect the main plants just in case.  Kumin and I are in the same zone but our weather isn't the same.

72
The pit greenhouse is for real.  I had a 20' by 20' pit greenhouse in central Kansas, zone 6.  Tomatoes and pappers wintered in it with no added heat.
But for growing tropical fruits up north, read what Kumin and I have written on breeding hardy citrus.  And SoCal2warm (I think I miss spelled that.  Sorry) in the north west might have good information for your zone.  You can search these names on this forum.
And in Europe, Ilya11 and Mikkel and others post on their efforts.  Ilya especially has been in this a long time.
And a man in Tennessee has started working on hardy kumquats.  He doesn't post here.
Of course, not every kind of fruit can be adapted to non tropical areas.  Not with today's methods.  But you are young and may live to see mangoes etc. in the north.
For now, a pit greenhouse and rare on tropical fruits are good ideas.

73
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Monoembryonic Hardy Orange?
« on: April 22, 2022, 04:24:19 PM »
Hong's certainly has the flavor. 

74
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Monoembryonic Hardy Orange?
« on: April 21, 2022, 11:45:10 PM »
I planted lots of Ponciris seeds last fall.  Most were monoembtyonic.
Bigger juicier Ponciris seeds from Kumin were mostly monoembryonic.  So were seeds from Hong's Landscape in Wichita Kansas.  Mr Hong brought a few seeds from Korea about 30 years ago.
I was sent seeds from 3 feral Trees, I forget the name but they were from the south.  Georgia or Alabama.  All monoembryonic.
Ponciris+ seedlings are on our side of the pond.  It lacks the famous Ponciris flavor and are likey monoembryonic like their mother.
I think it wouldn't be too hard to get scion wood or cuttings to root from one or more of these or others 

75
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: F2 citrange winter hardiness trial
« on: April 20, 2022, 11:50:24 AM »
Natural selection can be pretty intense. On the average, in the wild, each tree gives only one seedling to reach maturity. 
Otherwise the number of trees would keep increasing.
But in the wild, many of the seedlings die by being eaten by insects and bigger animals, not for lack of adaption.  Of course, in Kumin's program, dangers other than cold were eliminated.  So all the selection was limited to cold survival.  That's what breeders do.

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