I have 3 good sized Satsumas in the ground. I’ve lost track of the varieties and exact age. They are too big to be grafted on flying dragon but they are old enough that below their grafts are huge like an elephant foot. I have to trim them every year to keep them in the hoop house. This year I covered them with frost cloth for only two very cold periods. Once for 2 weeks of very cold weather and then about 3 days for cold weather. They have never had a really huge crop. I’m sure all the pruning hurts but it can’t be helped. My fruit it very puffy most of the time.
Some years are definitely better than others and they are about 10 years old , maybe more but not much more. I probably need to pick earlier in the fall too. I wish I’d put Satsumas in the ground that were grafted to flying dragon. Same with my nongrafted Meyer.
The Meyer is huge, often needs trimming but I’ve had over 300 lemons several times. Never had 300 Satsumas counting all three trees in one year. I’ve often trimmed to keep the citrus in the frame for winter but I’m not ever going to climb a citrus tree to pick fruit !
Bottom line, I think flying dragon rootstock would have been much better for me. Smaller trees, smaller fruit and better tasting fruit resulting from the flying dragon root stock !
All my Xie Shans are still in pots and I don’t know what their rootstock were when I bought them. Most of my Xie Shan plants came from Four Winds Nursery in California. At least 2 Xie Shans died on me in pots. Tough summers, not great potting soil, and too much water sometimes probably killed them but they were both on flying dragon. Flying dragon might be harder to keep alive in pots. Especially if you are loving them too much, meaning I probably watered them too much and the potting soil didn’t drain fast enough.
I’ve been looking for where my Xie Shan trees came from. I don’t see any Xie Shan on the 4 Winds web site. I know I’ve bought Xie Shan whenever I could find them. Petals from the Past doesn’t list Xie Shan but they do have them sometimes in their store.
That’s my thinking right now . I hope that makes sense and helps somebody !
Tom