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Topics - Pancrazio

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1
Cold Hardy Citrus / Ichang lemon Sebastien
« on: June 03, 2019, 04:14:34 PM »
I'm about to get this one. In what is different from standard ichang lemons? I have hard that it is almost thornless. What about the taste of fruits? are they usable as lemon substitute? How long they hang on the tree after the winter?

O a unrelated note, i'm also gettin the ichang lemon 153. Sometimes i see it referred as the same stuff as crc 1215 and sometimes see them treated as different clones. Are they the same, or are they different?

2
Citrus General Discussion / Siamese Sweet Pomelo
« on: May 28, 2019, 03:27:43 PM »
I read everywhere about this plant as a very common parent for a variety of citrus, but i never have seen it offered for sale or in a collection. It's very rare, unreleased, commonly sold with another name or what else?

3
Cold Hardy Citrus / Valentine and Cocktail pomelo cold response
« on: May 09, 2019, 07:11:39 PM »
I'm thinking to drop few lines about an experience i made last winter regarding those two plants.
Is hard to fine accurate comparision between two clones because one never knows how they were spaced and especially how much their rootstock/nutrition can vary.
Well, in my case, i guess, i have kept as close as possible two varieties in rigorously the same environment.
I grated both valentine and coctail on same rootstock, at the same height in the same spot, so everithing they got was rigorously equal. Just... i'm not sure what rootstock it is since i reused a failed clementine which i'm not sure about the origin, but i guess it must be citrumelo.



They grew nicely during summer then winter hit.



In the first column you have the average temperature in celsius and in the second the minimum temperature in celsius. As you can see we got till 17F with about two weeks of sub freezing nights (and i mean, not just light frosts).
During all this time both the valentine and the cocktail were outside with just a light frost cloth.
Well somehow they manage to survive with just little dieback and not becoming completely defoliated. No flowering this year but they bounced back.

Here a picture of them just after the frost at the end of january (the right part of the plant is cocktail and the left part is valentine, frost cloth moved up to show leaf damage):



They managed to survive! Pretty beaten but alive. Of course some degree of defoliation was to be expected and so happened (BTW you can see on right bottom corner of the pic a twig of ilya11's voss bloomsweet grapefruit completely unfazed by the cold)
This is them a month later:



The cocktail grapefruit got beaten a little harden than Valentine, even if i have to admit that on a small sized plant like this one is hard to make conclusive statements.
What can be said is that Valentine and Cocktail when dormant are pretty cold tolerant. Also im not completely sure but i suspect that keeping some leaves alive on more exposed twigs may be useful to help the plant in avoiding entire twig dieback. It's just a thought though.
Right now coctail has also a flower while valentine is a little more shy, but they completely recovered.

4
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Mexicola avocados for sale
« on: February 10, 2018, 07:20:34 AM »
Hi everyone.
As usual, in this time of the year i look for the new planting for my garden. Avocado is my objective now.
As much i have been searching in Europe, i haven't been able to find a genuine Mexicola avocado. Part of the problem is that for some mistake, in Europe "Mexicola" is used as the generic name of mexican race avocado, so I get several nurseries that sell mexicola avocados but often they reveals themselves to be just seed grown mexican race avocados. But i want a true, grafted, mexicola avocado.
So, it there anyone here knowing about a nursery selling the true grafted Mexicola avocado, and willing to ship oversea with the necessary documentation?
It's a long shot, i know, but for real, i have been searching for that plant for the last 6-8 years.
Thank you.

5
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Where to get a Naghal date plant?
« on: September 23, 2016, 03:42:58 PM »
Apparently this is one of the earliest cultivar, and following the reasoning that early cultivar need lesser total heat to ripen the fruits, i was thinking that maybe MAYBE i can give this a shot. I love dates, but regular dates sometimes ripen in southern italy but not here.
Problem is, finding a named date cultivar in europe is pretty hard! Where i can get one (hopefully TC) clone of this cultivar?

6
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Pomegranate grafted on dwarf pomegranate
« on: September 23, 2016, 07:29:49 AM »
I have grafted a regular pomegranate on a dwarf clone (cleft and t-bud), hoping to get a smallish tree.



Has anyone ever attempted this? What should i expect?
So far the graft are still alive but is still very soon to say if they did take (they are just 2 weeks old).
I was looking for feedback and experiences.

7
I think that the question may be similar to the question:
"If you are going to plant a mango in a cold place, are you going to prefer a vigorous one or a dwarf one? One is quick to recover; the other is easier to protect."
Well, i'm in a similar train of thought with my citrus. I want (I really want) try to grow some citrus, especially pomelos.
But my place is a cold one.
As for now my best idea has been "I’m going to graft all of them on Flying dragon because they'll remain dwarf and i'll have a easier job covering them: also FD makes for awesome fruits and impart cold hardiness which is important".
But right now I’m unsure if this is optimal. I mean that for pot growing this seems cool, but once you think about putting them in ground (and probably being able to cover just the graft point on most years) probably the best bet is going to be a more vigorous rootstock to have a way to see them recover quickly from cold snaps and dieback.
So... what is a very vigorous rootstock that imparts comparable cold hardiness and flavor to scions when is compared to flying dragon?
I don't think that pest resistance in meaningful for me: i grow citrus outside from a citrus zone so unless i bring any post my place will remain pest free.
Also, is there any bitter orange x poncirus hybrid?
I was thinking about normal poncirus trifoliata or maybe some poncirus hybrid?

8
Cold Hardy Citrus / Pomona sweet lemon hardiness
« on: July 16, 2016, 06:29:47 PM »
Hi there.
I was wondering if anyone has a rough estimate on cold hardiness of this one.
I have read in some sources that it is supposedly pretty hardy for a sweet lime, and i'm interested in an hardy lime for landscaping reasons.

9
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Homemade calcium fertilizer
« on: July 02, 2016, 04:05:02 PM »
Since I'm homestuck i can't buy any fertilizer in local shops.
But, as far i can see, some of my bananas have developed a calcium deficiency.
So i was wondering if there's any way to enrich the soil with calcium with common household items. In normal circumstances i would use Calcium cyanamide, but right now i have an hard time accessing it. Before eventually placing a mail order, i was wondering if...

10
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Mango fruit pest - how to treat it?
« on: June 24, 2016, 02:58:07 PM »
My mango fruit have started to show some kind of damage from a unknown, to me, pest.
I'd like to get help on identifing and eradicating it.





11
Citrus General Discussion / HLB stories
« on: June 24, 2016, 11:10:10 AM »
We talk a lot about HLB but i never see anyone with first hand reports.
id anyone find it on his own plants? How did you recognize it?

12
Cold Hardy Citrus / Satsuma cuttings
« on: June 01, 2016, 09:59:43 PM »
Has anyone experience in reproducing satsuma by cuttings? How they do on own roots?
I have had great success in getting citron and lime from cuttings, and i was wondering if can hope to achieve a good plant easily with this method even for satsumas.

13
Cold Hardy Citrus / Ornamental citrus
« on: May 30, 2016, 08:25:41 PM »
Because i want to give my garden a touch of Mediterranean atmosphere (well, it should be reasonable after all) i was thinking to add a citrus to the garden.
As you can imagine, however, my zone doesn't allow much choice; i can't simply plant an orange and hope that it will live.
So if i want a citrus in my garden, I’ve got to focus on the ones that can really survive here.
Another issue is the resilience to cold of fruits: to achieve the ornamental value of a citrus, i have to choose one with fruits that can survive winter spells, and also hold on the tree well into the summer. 
Now i'm wondering if such citrus does exist. Of course taste is just a secondary requirement, so pretty much anything goes. But no trifoliate hybrids! Their leaves are pretty uncitrussy, and i want to "look and feel".
So far my best bet look a fortunella (i was thinking obovata) or a bitter orange. They are both pretty hardy and may be able to survive here.
My main complain is that they have the orage fruits, and i hope something more lemon-like. Dwarf is better.
Any suggestion? I'm asking too much?

14
Cold Hardy Citrus / Opinions on poncirus trifoliata root sensitivy
« on: May 02, 2016, 08:36:18 PM »
Hi everyone,
this winter i have transplanted/moved/potted up some poncirus trifoliata i had in ground or crammed in a pot.
Usually i don't think much about moving and abusing of small leafless temperate fruit tree... when they are leafless, they do take root abuse quite well.
Well, in my humble opinion, this doesn't look the case when it come down to poncirus trifoliata.
I transplanted 7/10 plants, with some serious root pruning, from a small crammed pot to several bigger pot, but they haven't showed any sign of emitting new leaves... also, some of the bigger "flying dragons" seem to have similar problems.
Now, i'd like to know: it's just me, or this species look pretty sensitive when it comes to root pruning? Do you have had any similar experience?
Funny think is: i have a grafted yuzu on poncirus, and this one got serious root pruning too, but it's now pushing vigorously... i have also formulated the theory that in PT the storage of energy goes to roots during winter while in other citrus it says on leaves, but i can't explain in any way this difference of behavior.

15
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Grafting pineapple guava
« on: April 12, 2016, 08:28:49 PM »
Does anyone has any tip on grafting pineapple guavas? I think i'm gonna give a try to this, and i wondered if people here have attempted it/ have had luck at it. Supposedly it is pretty difficult, but i don't have any first hand experience, and i'd like suggestions. Cleft? T-bud?

16
Cold Hardy Citrus / Best Citrus aurantium (bitter orange)
« on: March 21, 2016, 08:12:52 PM »
Probably this is the least interesting citrus... i mean, even papedas hybrids usually get more recognition than this one.
Aside from the use as rootstock, which this plant performs very well (but right now its use as rootstock is decreasing, because is very tristeza susceptible), and some uses as marmalade, i was wondering if there is any cultivar of this specie which is better than the others for fresh consumption.
Some time ago I had a fruit from a plant that was fairly good, and since the plant is nice, strong, cold tolerant, i was wondering if there are some suggested cultivar for fresh consumption. I understand that this may not be common; i have had some bitter oranges that were completely awful. But looks almost impossible that in the years no tasty clones have been discovered, especially because it is a very ancient specie, and we also got some nice edible clones for fresh consumption even from lemons!

17
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Bananas in central italy: an experiment.
« on: March 18, 2016, 08:27:56 PM »
Yeah, well, i won't be remembered for my originality in new topic titles.

However, I wanted to share with you the results of this experiment, because for ages i have been searching exact data on cold hardiness of bananas, and while the general elements are well know (this is hardier than that) when it comes do to put down exact values, i did find hard to get a precise picture on how hardy a banana could be.

To do this experiment i choose a dwarf namwah; while it may not be the hardiest among all, it is still a very vigorous plant, people tell me it also fairly productive, I personally noticed that is very resistant to several stresses, and it is, in my opinion, the best subject, overall, for someone willing to grow bananas in a zone where bananas aren't meant to grow.

Before this experiment my method of growing bananas has been this one: i planted my bananas in ground on 1st of April (I think the neighbors thought about a joke the first year i attempted this) and potted them up at September. I did this for several years, and i did get several pup in the process; some of them have been kept for testing purpose.

Once i managed to get a pup big enough, i did grow it to a decent size (5') just to attempt this experiment and I did plant it in ground hoping to overwinter i: following some suggestion on bananas.org, i did plant it fairly deep.
During all the summer i attempted to push it at the best of my possibilities, hoping that the sheer size of it could help to offset any physiological problem due the nigh level of nutrients.

This was the plant in April 2015, and next the plant in October:
 

Long story short, the plant arrived in perfect condition to the end of November, where we got out first cold damage: at the relatively high temperature of 3°C (that is 37F) the plant started to show some damage:




But overall the plant held very very well for all the winter; pretty much at Christmas it was still in a good overall shape:



When you get a winter so warm, you can't avoid to be happy for your plants, but, in the meantime, you are well aware that no new knowledge is being made; it wasn't surprising to see a Dwarf namwah doing well with temps regularly above the zero/32F.
Luckily, i January we got something that was normal till few years ago, but right now looks pretty unusual: a cold spell.

At first it started slowly: on the night between 16 and 17 January we got -2,4°C (27,6F):


The following night we went to -3,7°C (25,3) with ice starting to form in water left outside:



On the 20th the temperature reached -6,1°C (that is 21F) with extended damage on the entire plant/pseudostems:

You can see the "washed away" look of the tissue cooked by the low temperatures:


The next day the temperature reached the absolute minimum at -6,4°C (that is 20,5°F).


As you can see from this graph, we got an extended period of time (about ten days) with night dripping regularly in the low 20s;

During all this time the plant never had any other protection than the one due to the planting location. I wrapped it in frost cloth at the end of the frost spell - the reason was that i feared new cold spell but we didn't get any. Admittedly, i didn't planned to get so much cold for my experiments; so I wasn't really prepared but on the other had, I also think that if you wanna grow something outside its zone, you've got to choose what is worth an extra mile (in my case, mango) and what isn't (bananas); i like bananas, but i can't give to all my plant the lever of care i give to my mango, so they had to deal with difficulties themselves: on a multi-year perspective, this is the only way i can hope to grow plant in a sustainable way.

Well, at this point you have seen what the plant has been trough. It is dead, right? RIGHT?
WRONG!




Few days ago they showed unequivocally that they are sill growing: so, except the damage to the most exposed leaf sheets, they didn't even lose the pseudostem. The picture is already old and the smallest plant has almost finished to unfurl its first leaf.
This may not be a surprise for some of the most expert zone pusher out there, but for me it was quite a surprise.
So i think that a couple of thing can be said from this small experience i have done; Dwarf Namwah can be a interesting banana to grow for beginners and zone pushers, and they can survive pretty well to temperature in the low twenties.
I hope this may help someone undecided on what bananas may do well in its place.
I'm well aware that a surviving bananas is pretty different from a fruiting bananas, but the latter can't be achieved without the former, and dwarf namwah seems the best bet in my opinion.
(For the record: dwarf orinoco did better than dwarf namwah in cold environment, but is slow and not very vigorous, and i have an hard time convincing it to grow. And fruits at my place apparently take forever to ripen.)



Edit: Typos. So many typos.

18
First question: is Oroblanco easily grwon from cuttings? Or does it have an hard time rooting?

I have been toying with the idea of growing a Oroblanco tree since a couple of year. My place is supposedly too cold for that citrus;  so i have to be prepared to have it under some serious cold stress.
From my point of view, i have got just two choices with that plant to deal with my cold winter:
1 - Get a cutting to root, and plant the resulting plant in the ground: this way even if the plant get freezed to the ground i can start over from a healthy root system, and in few years have the plant to bounce back to a fruiting plant. The downside of this method is that i don't get any advantage from a cold hardy rootstock, neither any type of stem protection that i could achieve with an high graft; once the temperature in the air layer close to the ground dips under the death level for the plant, the plant is gone.
2 - Practice an high graft on a poncirus plant. This way once the plant get too cold, is gone for good and I’ve got to graft again, but an high graft could help me on those cold nights and also defend the stem from cold pocket of air close to the ground.
In you experience what kind of strategy i should use to maximize the possibilities of my plant growing well and produce some fruits? What strategy is useful in cold plances?

19
Citrus General Discussion / Pomelo Valentine in EU
« on: February 15, 2016, 06:11:48 PM »
I know that most of you guys are from US so probably won't be able to help me... but i'm asking anyway for EU members and anyone who may have any information on the matter... I was searching for any source of healthy scions inside the European Union for the citrus in object... looks really interesting to me, and while we have our share of pomelos, new varieties from US are hard to come by.

20
Citrus General Discussion / My first self produced yuzu!
« on: December 26, 2015, 09:22:19 AM »
Finally after a couple of years after i got the scions, i managed to produce my first yuzu plant.
This is grafted on poncirus trifoliata, and it should be as hardy as it gets, for a citrus. Freshly planted in this pot that should allow the development of a strong taproot, to help it during dry spells.



I will keep the plant in this pot for 1-2 year before planting in ground. I hope to have it to thrive in a place in central italy which is too cold for any other citrus.

21
Temperate Fruit Discussion / Nursery selling pecans oversea?
« on: December 12, 2015, 07:38:29 AM »
I'm searching for a nursery (from usa/europe) selling some nothern variety of pecan in europe. Bareroot pecans should ship well, and won't probably be damaged by a long wait at the customs, so this may be worth a shot. In europe we have few variety available and most of them are shouthern clones so, unless you live in warmer parts of the continet, you can't grow pecans. But it think that with the right variety the growth limit of this plant can be pushed. So, where i can buy one?

22
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Mango in pot.
« on: September 10, 2015, 08:40:54 AM »
Well till now i assumed mango needed big pots. I must have been wrong.



Mango in a 50cm pot (a pot not even 2 feet wide) in the botanical garden of Lucca. The plant was about 3,50 mt (12ft).

23
I'm basically begging. I want to buy/trade the previously listed varieties. I need them to "secure" my mango plants in case i had to start over from scratch and to continue my "experimentation" in growing mangoes in temperate climates. If you have at least one of those, and are available for a trade, or interested in an exchange, just contact me via Private Message. Thank you!

24
Tropical Fruit Discussion / It's small. It's deformed. It's ugly.
« on: August 18, 2015, 03:39:51 PM »
But it is my first homegrown mango!  ;D ;D ;D





After five years of efforts, i have finally tasted my first and only fruit from my very own mango!  :D
Yes, it may not be the best looking fruit, and i do really think i have still a very long road to take before i can call myself a mango grower, but this is really a starting point! And a concrete one, not my usual wishful thinking!
Regarding the taste test, the flavor was very unevenly distributed, with some immature parts, and the mature ones that were sweet beyond belief, like eating a mango flavored candy. This little runt left me definitively craving for more!

25
The title says pretty much everything. I want to buy/trade the previously listed varieties. If you have at least one of those, and are available for a trade, or interested in an exchange, or in me searching something for you in my local nurseries, just contact me via Private Message.
Thank you!

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