Author Topic: Need help with polyembryonic yuzu seedlings  (Read 1847 times)

deRoode

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Need help with polyembryonic yuzu seedlings
« on: January 24, 2019, 08:03:23 AM »
Hi there,

In december I was able to get my hands on some yuzu fruits imported from Japan. I am a big fan of Japanese citrus varieties so I took this oppertunity to collect the seeds. I planted the seeds in normal potting soil and surprisingly, many germinated! I have some questions about these seedlings:

1. Some sources say that yuzu seedlings are not polyembryonic and therefore my seedlings could be some other varity. I also saw some other sources say that yuzu could be polyembryonic and therefore it should not be a problem. What can I expect from these seedlings? For now, I have germinated up to four plants from one seed.

2. I know that citrus seedlings are not true to their parents, however to what extent are they not true to their parents? My thoughts are that if I have many seedlings, there should be some that could be closely related to the parent trees

3. Can I seperate the seedlings from each other (using root inducing growth hormones)?

4. Not relevant to the topic, but does anyone know where I can find other Japanese citrus varities (yuko, sudachi, kabosu etc.) in Europe?

Any help is appreciated!


Ilya11

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Re: Need help with polyembryonic yuzu seedlings
« Reply #1 on: January 24, 2019, 09:25:54 AM »
Yuzu is to some extent polyembryonic, that is some of your seedlings are more or less exact copies of mother variety. The rest are probably also Yuzus if the fruit comes from a farm growing mostly yuzus.
If you want to have exactly the same Yuzu variety, keep the strongest seedling among twins coming from a single seed. The seedlings are more or less easy to separate, since they are individual plants having distinct root systems.
You can also buy mature grafted plants from  several European nurseries  like Eisenhut or Lenzi
« Last Edit: January 24, 2019, 09:30:55 AM by Ilya11 »
Best regards,
                       Ilya

Florian

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Re: Need help with polyembryonic yuzu seedlings
« Reply #2 on: January 24, 2019, 10:08:33 AM »
Welcome to the forum!
Just beware when buying citrus because there are many different cultivars of some species and also some wrong names in the trade.
For example, Eisenhut's Sudachi (N 80) is in fact a Hana Yuzu. There is also a fake (Russian) Yuko which is in fact a variety of lemon.

Since you are from the Netherlands, you could perhaps contact Citrusbali.nl

Check out Citrus pages for more information on citrus coming true from seed and more: http://citruspages.free.fr/classification.html

cheers


Millet

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Re: Need help with polyembryonic yuzu seedlings
« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2019, 03:34:00 PM »
More varieties of citrus produce true from seed, than those that do not.  Almost all oranges, true grapefruit, lemons, limes, pure mandarins (other than King and clementine), most tangelos, hybrid tangerines and tangors (except Temple) come true from seed.  Pummelos do not come true from seed.

deRoode

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Re: Need help with polyembryonic yuzu seedlings
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2019, 01:32:14 AM »
Thank you for your replies, it helps a lot  :) . Unfortunatly, it still seems hard to get my hands on some of the citrus species I am looking for, but I will be on the lookout for them.

SoCal2warm

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Re: Need help with polyembryonic yuzu seedlings
« Reply #5 on: January 25, 2019, 07:28:13 PM »
1. Some sources say that yuzu seedlings are not polyembryonic and therefore my seedlings could be some other varity. I also saw some other sources say that yuzu could be polyembryonic and therefore it should not be a problem. What can I expect from these seedlings?
The majority of yuzu seedlings are nucellar (genetic clones of the fruit parent) and, of those, many (maybe about half) are polyembryonic. Even if an occasion yuzu seed was not nucellar, it is still likely to turn out pretty much the same as the parent.
(yuzu genes are pretty homogenous, and self-pollination is more likely than outside pollination, unless cross-pollination was specifically attempted)

You can expect the vast majority to turn out "true to seed".

2. I know that citrus seedlings are not true to their parents, however to what extent are they not true to their parents?
It actually depends on the citrus variety, and whether it was pollinated by another different citrus variety.
Usually hybrid varieties are most likely to produce seed that will turn out different from the parents, if the seed was zygotic. (Although hybrid citrus varieties also tend to be a lot less likely to produce zygotic seeds, meaning most of seeds will be exactly the same as the parent)

3. Can I seperate the seedlings from each other (using root inducing growth hormones)?
Yes, if a seed is polyembryonic you can usually separate out the separate seedlings and they'll grow just fine.

« Last Edit: January 25, 2019, 07:35:19 PM by SoCal2warm »