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Messages - tesilvers

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1
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Calamondin x Poncirus
« on: March 01, 2020, 10:20:38 PM »
Two current pictures of the first (biggest) seedling:





The other two hybrids aren't looking so promising.

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Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Calamondin x Poncirus
« on: February 05, 2020, 01:01:57 PM »
It's hard to tell from these pictures but I've got a third hybrid seedling now. There were two seedlings from this particular seed and the runty one has very small but trifoliolate leaves emerging. So, the totals now are three hybrid and five nucellar seedlings.




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Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: F2 citrange winter hardiness trial
« on: February 03, 2020, 10:08:09 AM »
Those grafts are looking good!

I agree about the Flying Dragon seedlings - all straight ones and some of the contorted ones should be zygotic. Speaking of which... here's one of the more vigorous obviously zygotic seedlings of Flying Dragon.


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Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: F2 citrange winter hardiness trial
« on: January 31, 2020, 03:34:04 PM »
0.5% of the 15% zygotic - not an easy road by any means! :)
But I'm still gonna give it a go too. I just ordered 2 quarts of Sacaton which (contrary to early reports of being completely nucellar) has been reported to have 40-50% zygotic seedlings. I'm excited to finally get to try this out. Wish me luck!

I've never counted the numbers of "off-type" seedlings but I've definitely seen a relatively high percentage of obviously zygotic seedlings in Flying Dragon batches. I've got about a dozen straight-stemmed and straight-thorned ones planted in a row to evaluate for fruit variation whenever they mature. They came from an isolated mother tree, so I'm assuming they're from selfing which might explain their slow growth rate (- inbreeding depression maybe???). I'd like to try some intentional pollination this coming season using Rubidoux pollen on Flying Dragon to see if the percentage of off-type seedlings increases and to see if the vigor would be noticeably better.

Concerning the early dormant Flying Dragon seedling above... as a side project, I'd like to see how far North I can get a pure trifoliate to survive. Do you know of anyone growing trifoliate unprotected in zone 5b? I have a location in North Central Pennsylvania that I can test plant some seedlings and thought I might try the early dormant one there.

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Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: F2 citrange winter hardiness trial
« on: January 27, 2020, 07:52:07 PM »
That would be reasonable to expect - to get a range of hardiness in the [true] F2. Were the approximately 0.5% with increased hardiness that you mentioned, out of the original 20,000 or out of the 15% zygotic F2?

Glad Poncirus+ is in the US. I was under the impression that it was only available in Europe. Less resin and bitterness sounds like a move in the right direction. Although, I haven't really noticed bitterness, just extreme sour (which is okay to me). But, the gumminess is definitely off putting.

I saw that you've been noticing differences in habit of dormancy. I had one Flying Dragon seedling that went dormant earlier than three siblings. I thought these four were all nucellar but maybe the one was actually a contorted zygotic seedling. My thought when I saw this one, was that it could give offspring with better (earlier and/or stronger) dormancy. Any thoughts on this matter from your experiences with the varied F2?
Thanks, Tom


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Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: F2 citrange winter hardiness trial
« on: January 25, 2020, 06:09:39 AM »
Hi Kumin,
We're in Washington county Maryland, near Harpers Ferry West Virginia. We hardly ever have any cold damage on Poncirus, but I haven't been able to keep any F1 types alive outdoors here.
I was a member of the Indoor Citrus and Rare Fruit Society back in the 80's, and my membership transferred to California Rare Fruit Growers afterwards, so I recognized Major Collins name when you mentioned him. The trifoliate I used on my potted calamondin is a descendant from the indoor citrus society seed bank offerings.
I'll keep your advice in mind when I order seed soon, but I have to operate within my Christmas money budget.   ;)
I hadn't mentioned it but I'm also trying to simultaneously improve trifoliate without citrus interbreeding. So far, I've got about a dozen zygotic seedlings of Flying Dragon lined out to see how much variation the fruit will show. I plan on extending that row as I germinate more seedlings. I've got another small batch germinating right now. Nucellar seedlings will become rootstocks; zygotic seedlings will get added to the row.
Thanks for inspiring the rest of us dreamers.
Tom

7
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: F2 citrange winter hardiness trial
« on: January 24, 2020, 09:54:00 AM »
Kumin, I love what you're doing. About ten years ago, I had planned to do the same (only not with C-35 specifically), but only got so far as to call the seed vendor. I was supposed to call back in a few months when it would be seed harvest time, but other things of life distracted me. In February, I plan to follow through this time and do a smaller scale version of your project. In the meantime though, I've been growing yearly batches of US 852 seedlings (thanks to Stan McKenzie) and most years all of the seedlings (nucellar and zygotic) have winterkilled. Occasionally a few have survived a winter, only to get killed in the next winter. Last winter only one seedling survived, so I recently dug it up and brought it indoors out of fear. I'm hoping to high graft a piece onto trifoliate later to see if it is reliably hardy here. We're zone 6b but just about on the border of 7a.



In all the years I've dabbled in container growing citrus and growing Poncirus in the ground, 2019 was the first time I'd ever tried a hand pollination. I used pollen from an old Poncirus (I think was Rubidoux) on 3 flowers of a potted calamondin. So far, I've got two definite hybrid seedlings.

Keep up the great work with your F2 C-35's!!!
Tom

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Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Calamondin x Poncirus
« on: January 24, 2020, 07:47:07 AM »
Hello Till,
Coincidentally, I did the same cross in Spring 2019 but only on three flowers of calamondin. I got seven seeds and so far it looks like I'll have two hybrid seedlings. They are only a few months old:





It will be interesting to see how much variation there will be among our hybrids.
Best wishes, Tom

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