Planning for Spring Grafting: What Should I Order?

[botanical pilot]

I am planning to graft onto my current citrus and practice micro-grafting with the remaining scions I'm ordering from CCPP.

Had success last year grafting Yuzu and Silverhill Satsuma. I have some bud grafts left of Smith Red Blood Orange that are still green but have not pushed. I was completely unsuccessful grafting Chulo Key Lime.

Yuzu was grafted onto Yuzus I germinated in 2018; I will probably have some bud grafting ability on those trees. My Silverhill Satsuma is on a Flying Dragon rootstock and can’t be top-worked or bud grafted this year.

Other trees include a seedling key lime and grafted Rangpur Lime, Lane Late Navel, Finger Lime, and variegated kumquat, all from Four Winds Growers. Wouldn’t mind making these cocktail trees. I also have a few dozen Flying Dragon citrus that I can micrograft, most are less than a year. I've had some success with this in the past.

I’ve compiled a list of varieties I'm interested in growing and would appreciate the forums' opinions as well as any additional recommendations. I love something I can pick and eat, use in a cocktail, and cook with. I won’t be getting all of these but wanted to have options depending on CCPP scion availability.

Out of hand:
- New Zealand Lemonade
- Xie Shan Satsuma
- Gold Nugget
- More Blood Orange
- Smith Red Blood Orange
- Valentine Pomelo

Acidic:
- Chulo Key Lime
- Calamondin
- Femminello Siracusano 2KR

[Millet]

Xie Shan is excellent.   Valentine Pumelo is very sweet with no acid.

[sc4001992]

Add Cocktail pomelo/hybrid (Mandalo), VI-127. My fruits this year was one of the best tasting for me, had more sweetness than the Valentine. I plan to make more grafts onto my other trees.

[sc4001992]

I forgot to mention sumo. Many people who tried my sumo said it was really good tasting this year as well. Fruits are larger than an orange and is sweet with some tartness.

[sc4001992]

pictures uploader

[botanical pilot]

I'll definitely look into the cocktail pummelo and sumos, the former looks extremely productive and that brix reading is pretty impressive! Thanks for the additional recommendations.

I like the quote from 1987 about the pummelo:
"A medium-large size fruit- about like a grapefruit. Dark yellow, thin rind. Dark yellow flesh, almost orange yellow. Too damn seedy for commercial usage but makes a good dooryard juice variety. Very unique flavor; you could love it or hate it."

I'll definitely give it a go if it's available. I don't mind seeds.

[sc4001992]

Yup, the photos above is the small cocktail fruit on the smaller tree shown. My larger (standard) tree gets larger fruits over 1 lb each.

If you haven't seem the fruits on my tree from other posts, here's what it looks like if you don't thin the fruits.

[mangoba]

It's interesting how all your Sumos are almost neckless 

[sc4001992]

I mentioned the different sumo varieties UCR/CCPP has, they call it citation (3 types). So, it depends on which tree your budwood came from when you order it from them. I have many sumo grafts on my tree, I have a few branches that has the completely seedless, with neck, sumos. But I also have these  other grafts where the fruit does not always have the bump/neck like the ones you would see at the store. I also have sumo grafts where the fruits always (90%) has more than 5 seeds in each fruit.

[botanical pilot]

That's an insane amount of fruit on one tree! Do you grow any blood oranges or red fleshed varieties?

[sc4001992]

.

[sc4001992]

My record number of fruits was my Oroblanco tree that had one large branch with 110 full size fruits. Just before it turned color (yellow), the entire branch (2" diameter) broke off the tree so I ended up graft 22 different varieties on that tree now. Melogold tastes better to me.

[EricSC]

I forgot to mention sumo. Many people who tried my sumo said it was really good tasting this year as well. Fruits are larger than an orange and is sweet with some tartness.

sc4001992,

Is Honey the California Honey, which the real name is "W. Morcutt"?  Are there flavor difference other than seeds vs seedless between Morcutt vs W. Morcutt?  I often found the store bought Morcutt has a sort of smoke flavor not sure it is true. 

[sc4001992]

The Honey I show in the photo is the CA honey, different from the Florida Murcott shown in bottom left. There's actually 3 murcott varieties that I have, one is the CA Honey, second is the FL murcott honey, third is a smooth skin/very thin murcott. These all have seeds, the seedless murcott is the Tango which tastes better than the smooth skin murcott.

I would say the CA Honey (w/seeds) is the sweetest with some tartness and I like it the most. People I give the fruits say the same about this one. The same of the CA Honey is not as flat as the other two variety if you look closely at the fruits. Sometimes the FL murcott fruit gets to medium size fruit, always slightly flat shaped. The CA Honey can be round shaped or like a Gold Nugget shape and the skin is different from the other two.

This is the Honey mandarin I have below (VI-133)

Honey mandarin
Citrus reticulata Blanco RUTACEAE
CRC 3177
PI 539503
VI 133

[sc4001992]

This is the Florida murcott I show on bottom left of my photo.

Murcott mandarin
Citrus reticulata Blanco

CRC 3846
PI 539521
VI 147