Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - orangedays

Pages: [1] 2 3
1
Citrus General Discussion / Re: CLM & Citrus Canker
« on: August 01, 2023, 12:06:25 PM »
I have noticed no CLM so far this year. Normally they are a plague. We experienced a deep freeze to around 10 F this winter, maybe the local population has been eliminated.  But I was more consistent with spinosad and neem sprays this summer which work very well together than in the past. Its possible that spinosad would work almost as well on its own if you are concerned about oil burn.  If you have fire ants, spinosad works really well and also on stink bugs on vegetables. Its a great organic pesticide.  But you have to watch the way it has been stored. It can degrade so  look for a reputable supplier. I have bought from Amazon and was disappointed.  This year, I got it from seven springs and am pleased. I also really like neem oil and I use it all the long hot summer. I spray my trees with neem after 6 pm and never get sun burn from the oil.  The trees will look bright and shiny the next day.
By the way, avoid oil, if you used copper or sulfur on the trees within the last month, I haven't made this mistake with citrus, but I have nearly kill peaches this way.

2
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Prague bark damage, sun scald?
« on: June 12, 2023, 10:00:24 AM »
It would be worth a try. In fact I wonder if painting / spraying the branches with a white wash of some kind as soon as winter set in and the leaves dropped if that would forestall some of the subsequent bark splitting.  But also after the branches split,  would the paint - sealer stretch to provide a seal over the wounds and prevent pathogens for entering the spit and killing the branches? I had a lot of limb loss due to splitting as well.

3
It would be nice for the forum to build a chart like this. It would be super useful. One thing that I wonder when people talk about cold hardy. What does cold hardy mean to them? No damage, some damage, roots survived and regrew?  From what I read there is also difference in estimates of cold  hardiness in different environments. Europe, East vs West US etc. So you may want an additional column for different geographic regions, but that might thin out the data too much.

4
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: OxiDate, Any experiance use this on citrus?
« on: March 08, 2023, 09:40:09 AM »
Thanks for the information.  I watered and sprayed a group of citrus and vegetable seedlings and citrus plants flushing with new growth with 'Oxidate 2.0' at 1.3 oz/gal.  After four days there is no apparent harm to any of the treated plants.  It did seem to stop fungus gnats in the soil. So I am encouraged to use it widely for root rot and leaf issues on citrus.  The instruction sheet lists brown rot on peaches as one of the diseases it cures. If this proves to true here in the muggy US South-East I will be astonished.

5
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Calamondin as female parent
« on: March 08, 2023, 09:32:03 AM »
Till that makes great sense when pollinating with PT where the zygotes are easy to distinguish.  I will try this with key lime which seems to have a great deal of separation between the stigma and anthers as well.  Have any of your calamondin X PT hybrids reached bearing age? If so what are the fruit like?

6
Cold Hardy Citrus / OxiDate, Any experiance use this on citrus?
« on: March 04, 2023, 05:49:17 PM »
I have been reading that hydrogen peroxide is good for treating fungal diseases, sterilizing soil, eliminating mites and scale and even increasing the oxygen in the soil.  I bought OxiDate to try out.  I would love to know  if any of you have used it and how effective or what risks there may be when applying it to citrus or citrus potting soil?

7
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Calamondin as female parent
« on: March 04, 2023, 05:42:07 PM »
Not good. I found six seedlings with trifoliate leaves among dozens of calamondin seedlings. I made several dozen pollinations, and each fruit had 4-6 seeds.  So it was not a good return for all the work, and then 4 of the seedlings developed bleached leaves and are wilting.  Sadly, only two are looking good at this point.  However I put calamondin pollen on changsha and got what I think is a dozen changsha-calmonding hybrids out of 3 fruit, each fruit with around 30 seed. But being optimistic, I am trying again this year pollinating calamondin with PT pollen.

8
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Fukushu X PT seed
« on: March 03, 2023, 06:18:45 PM »
So far it doing well. I planted it in the ground on a high sandy spot this summer and it grew nicely about three feet tall on a single stem.  It took a sudden drop in temperature to 11 degrees with almost no damage. But now its starting to leaf out and we are expecting freezing weather in a week.  I will cover it and hope for the best. It seems when cold hits tender growth the results are much worse. But I noticed last year that the PT trees can take freezing to 24 F and not show damage. Hope that works the same for these PT crosses.

9
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Calamondin as female parent
« on: March 03, 2023, 06:11:15 PM »
 I have made a few crosses with calamondin as the female.  I find it difficult to emasculate as it has small flowers. I had a low number of hybrids in a large number of seed so it was more trouble to use it as the female parent, than using it as a pollen parent crossed to a citrus with higher rates of zygotes.  I agree that it doesn't drop the fruit after pollination, a very nice feature in the female parent.

10
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Yuzu
« on: March 03, 2023, 05:52:02 PM »
I found my yuzu somewhat bitter and sour but not the nice sour of a lemon or lime. Just sour.  It was from a potted tree and probably overloaded with fruit. So the quality may have been lacking due to too small a leaf to fruit ratio. The fruit have so many seed.  It is like PT in that respect.   I didn't think very much of it but it is supposed to be very cold hardy, so I made several crosses using yuzu as the pollen parent. I think 10degree tangerine is a yuzu hybrid and is supposed to produce good fruit.  One of the crosses was to changsha - that one should really make allot of seed!

11
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Citrus damage after freeze
« on: March 01, 2023, 07:58:03 PM »
I can finally estimate the damage to my citrus hybrids after this  December's freeze. The temperature dropped to 11 F and stayed below freezing for around 48 hours after a warm mild Fall. I had a variety of crosses to a Dustan citrumelo seedling. I planted these in a row in a very exposed area, with  a changsha seedling every fourth tree to act as a control. These were all 3 years old and stem diamerter any were from 1/3rd to 1 inch thick and mainly bushy around 3-5 feet tall. The chansha were around 6-7 ft.  The idea is the seedling should do at least better than changsha to be worth keeping, that is they stems stayed a healthy green and  now showing signs of regrowth.

3 of 9 Changsha X Dustan are keepers
4 of 15 Juanita (f2) X Dustan are keepers
1 of 3 Owarie X Dustan are keepers

These all lost all or most of their leaves. The changsha seedlings were interesting. They all died back to some extent. The stems did not crack but developed a grayish cast. They were all around 6-7 ft tall.  Overall they look worse than they were. Some are dead to almost to the ground while other are sprouting from the grayish stems over 5 ft and growing well. Spring has come on so early this year, I think they are all at risk and I may lose them still. But as controls they had more variability than I expected.

Of the poncirus hybrids, most appear to have very little damage. The PT X Hamlin suffer the most. I think the mulch formed a frozen crust around the trunks as the damage is on the primary stems where the stalk leaves the mulch. 3 of the 17  changsha X PT died, the rest look unharmed. All 3 fukushu X PT hybrids look well. I also planted out 5 Hirado Butan X PT f3? seedlings (from hardyvermont). These were small and under heavy mulch. They all survived and look pretty good. I lost several tangelos, red grapefruit, Hamlin, and Amber sweet that were under cover with a 60 gallon water barrel. The Okitsu tangerine under cover with water barrel, came through all green and leafy.  I hope to cross it with Dustan this spring if we don’t have a late freeze...

12
Citrus General Discussion / Re: experimenting with clay soil in containers
« on: November 05, 2022, 10:18:28 AM »
I had the idea last year to add clay to increase water retention, take advantage of clay's ability to hold on to ions, keeping nutrients available and to increase iron as my trees were showing iron deficiency.  I potted many trees into a mix containing 10% red clay.  It was a total disaster.  The citrus on PT root stock and natural roots started to die with-in months. I re-potted all the citrus. Of course in a dry environment it may not be as detrimental.

The other plants vegetables, flowers, etc. were very happy in the clay amended soil and grew very well.  I don't rule out it may have been the clay I used. As Brain noted, the PT trees growing  in the ground do well in heavy clay.  I have a large healthy citrumelo growing in clay you could use to throw pots and feral PT trees colonize  creek banks where its both wet and full of heavy clay.  So there may be role for clay.

13
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: F2 citrange winter hardiness trial
« on: January 01, 2022, 03:51:34 PM »
Nice color! Congratulations, this is good progress towards your goals, and in only four years.

14
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Hybrids
« on: December 30, 2021, 04:11:52 PM »
I am germinating them indoors.  After they come up ( in about two weeks - if seed coats removed ), I either place them in a south facing window or under grow lights. This way, I get a head start on the growing season and these may grow a few feet before next winter.

15
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Hybrids
« on: December 30, 2021, 10:51:53 AM »
These are pictures of 20 seed from the F2 PT X Hirado Buntan hardyvermont sent.  I pealed the seed to speed up germination. This also gives some ability to determine if the seed are poly-embryonic. 

These seed are larger then most, plump and 100% mono-embryonic.  So hopefully/probably zygotic. They are also very white which may will be useful in detecting future crossed to green seeded citrus.  I will plant them in the ground this spring when they are of size.




16
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Fukushu X PT seed
« on: December 01, 2021, 09:52:50 AM »
I was not aware of this.  There is some question of fukushu being a hybrid of some kind, similar to the calamondin, so maybe the reason lies in that direction. It blooms in the spring unlike my other kumquats which is why I was able to make the cross.  The Thomasville kumquat is reported to be 1/4 PT so there is some success with the cross.  Non-viability may be an exaggeration because all the varieties he tried were not viable as you said.  So far two are still healthy but its early yet.

17
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Fukushu X PT seed
« on: November 26, 2021, 07:14:52 PM »
Yes it was you! It was the calamondin by PT seed description you provided that got me interested in seed color and convince me to try more crosses with polyembryonic varieties as well. I also noticed that seed with a pale embryo often turns out to be mono embryonic or have few smaller secondary embryos, as if the zygote suppresses the nucellar embryo development.

Its very impressive that you were able to germinate a soft seed. I didn't know it was possible unless in tissue culture.

18
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Hybrids
« on: November 26, 2021, 06:59:26 PM »
The fruit looks great.  This is a cross I am interested in.  Hirado Buntan is supposed to be 'quite cold hardy' and ripens in the fall with zygotic seedlings.  What I didn't realize was how big the fruit is until I saw the pictures Laaz posted. Does it ripen in the same year it flowers in? That seems extraordinary, given its size.  The size of this F2 fruit is really impressive and encouraging.  I  bought a Hirado Buntan this spring hoping maybe to make this cross next spring. But this is better.

If all the seed not already claimed, may I have some?

 I am also making a few crosses with PT to get away from the current nucellar hybrids and use these to back crosses to cold hardy citrus. After that, use the back crosses to hybridize to each other and to select for for good taste and hardiness. It might work for zone 8 as there are some sweet citrus that can almost survive 8a.

19
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Fukushu X PT seed
« on: November 22, 2021, 08:03:58 PM »






With the changshaw there was also a slight color difference between the peeled seed. I divided the seed according to color. These seed come from 4 fruit and there was a surprising number of pale seed.  So far all the light green seed have trifoliate leaves.  I also make a very few tenuous crosses of hamilin on the PT.  In the spring the winds were high and I found it too dangerous on most days to approach the failing PT limbs in order to apply pollen. Anyway I did harvest fruit and found among the many the tan seed, there were two with a slight off green shade. I planted all the seed from the fruit with the pale green seed, and two came up with a different look. It will be a year before I will be able to distinguish if any of the PT seedlings are crosses but two have much longer middle leaves and are growing more vigorously.

Some one else on this forum that clued me into looking for the color difference in embryo's. Was it you Till?  I had read the  pale embryos are immature. That may be (they seem slower to germinate), but it may also be useful marker for finding hybrids.

20
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Fukushu X PT seed
« on: November 22, 2021, 07:47:46 PM »
They are still alive but not doing as well as I hoped. I started with eight and now have only two that are vigorous.  It seems they damped off or something similar happens with the roots. I am trying to rescue three by grafting on to pure fukushu seedlings but I don't hold out much hope. There are three that seem to be healthy, two are tall and one is very small but looks green and healthy so far.  In this case all of the crosses had alternating leaves. I think also the seed color indicates a cross. I made two additional crosses this spring ChangshawXPT, and PTXHamlin.  I will post those results in a separate post to follow.





21
Can one see a visible difference between the dormant PT flower buds and leaf buds in the fall? 
Thanks!

22
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: 28 F, -2.2 C
« on: November 18, 2021, 02:51:20 PM »
Are these in the ground cold-hardy plants that don't need protection just the maturing fruit?
Seed from Poncirus  that go through cold winters in the SC upstate will germinate, so if the fruit are mature enough, the cold probably won't harm them. 
The seed may be mature enough to germinate and grow now, even though they were set in June.  I had 3 fruit from a tangerine X PT cross this summer and a fruit  split open in July and another in August.  The fruit ripen late October.  Anyway the seed from the fruit that split in August were firm and germinated when planted. These seed were two months immature.  The seed from the one remaining mature fruit are just starting to germinate.
Also I believe if you pick and store the fruit, the seed inside will continue to mature as long as the fruit is alive. Of course the fruit will start to die after a month or so but it can buy some time.

23
I am wondering if by pruning that would create new growth that was bushy and more compacted and establish a strong frame to support future fruit.  I guess I should try and see but that means pruning off all the current fruit and flowers to get to an eventual hopefully better end-state. 

24
I have a Mayer lemon in a pot that has a weeping form. It sends out long sender branches and blooms and sets fruit on the branch tips. It then the branches bends and drops to the side and destabilize the pot. Its cumbersome to move about and doesn't look as nice as it would if the branches were sturdier and shorter.  I noticed and treated it for scale this spring which made it grow more vigorously but still the same long slender framework with fruit at the tips of the branches.

Is there a general practice for pruning potted citrus you can recommend. Thanks!

25
There are many groves of feral PT growing in SC and Georgia. I have harvest some and and examined the fruit found many which seem to be mono-embryonic.  How I tell it to take the inner seed coat off and see if the kernel is a single almond like seed or of it fractures and falls into many parts.  By they way its interesting to sprout these parts on a wet paper towel. Even the tiny fragments will germinate and send out a root. 

I've read that in the late 1800's people used them for fence hedges. My Mom said they were used for pectin when she was a child. A little of the pulp was mixed with fruit that didn't contain much natural pectin allowed the fruit to jam. The same way crab apples are used for the pectin.  They may be worth having to add genetic diversity to the current limited selection of PT that's available.  I am using the wild PT with mono-embryonic seed growing near me for crosses.  I hope they will confer a better chance of zygotic seedlings to the offspring.

Pages: [1] 2 3