How did your trees fair with the cold mrtexas? I have my citrus in containers so they were moved into the garage for the coldest days but I see a number of satsumas in our area that look like they came through OK.

A few trees with some leaves lost. The most lost on sour orange rootstock. No damage on satsumas.

Phil, that same storm came through here (Colorado) two days ago.  We had a low of -4F.  Today it was sunny with a high of 31-F, and tomorrow should be around 55F. Sorry about your crop.  I have a Seville sour orange that has quite a few fruit on it.  Could you post once again your recipe how to make it.

I could post it but you wouldn't have the industrial pectin I use. Just get a package of grocery store
pectin and follow their recipe.  https://mrtexascitrus.weebly.com/marmalade.html

"my plan is to boil water and put it in 5gal buckets next to the jabos
and other sensitive plants."

Don't bother boiling the water. The heat is in the water freezing at 1,000 btu/lb

Water cooling is 1btu/lb/degF. So boiling the water provides 180 btu/lb going from
212F to 32F and 1,000btu freezing.

If you're outside California, it might be harder to order from CCPP.ucr.edu. I heard some Texas people had to pay $100 and then a higher amount per bud. Texas is a citrus growing state though, so they might have more restrictions in place to warrant the extra cost to certify.

In Texas we have to pay $3 a bud, $150 service fee, $35 shipping or $245 for 20 CCPP buds. That is what I paid for shiranui buds from Florida. Gave up on waiting for California shiranui. Must order thru the Texas bud wood bureau. No more orders for me at those prices. Probably next year can't get any bud wood to graft legally.

No obvious freeze damage here near Houston. Got to 26F last night, the same tonight.

Really, I thought Charleston was pretty close to the coast?

Not the right time of year now. Will be teaching this again in March: https://txrxlabs.org/classes/334/urban-homesteading-tree-grafting/

Bud wood from the citrus center is expensive, $3 a bud minimum 10 buds per variety and $35 for shipping.

that was my next question. How close does the pollinator need to be? I'll probably plant a 30gl or maybe even a 45gl if they look significantly better.

Bigger is not better. A 3 gallon will likely outgrow a 30 gallon. You should also consider a sugar belle
as you live in Florida. It is earlier and just as good tasting as a minneola or orlando tangelo. Don't know
about pollinator for it, probably not.

Quote from: mrtexas on October 21, 2017, 07:27:15 PM

They do need a pollinator. Plant a temple also. Fabulous tasting "orange" as well.
Back in the 70s when I was attending MIHS we used to buy minneolas and temples together at the
Pollicichio fruit stand on SR3 north of the barge canal. Wish I still lived there. The fruit
was memorable!

I actually live in MI off SR3 about 4 mi south of 520 on plantation rd, across from the old lychee grove. it's a little slice of paradise, that's what got me into Mangos and such. I guess im going to have to plant a temple as well, maybe in the neighbors yard, im out of space.

I remember buying lychees from that grove in the 1970s! Trees were huge then. Plant the temple and minneola in the same hole. Don't think minneola is any harder to grow than orlando. Tastes much richer as well.

Phil, yes your correct, Sour Orange is not as cold hardy as Flying Dragon or other trifoliates.  However, it is more cold hardy than many other rootstocks.  I see the University of Florida list Sour orange as a "G" for freezes.   "G"  stands for good.  All the trees I purchased from you were on FD, and all are doing good.  My in ground Cara Cara is on FD, and it is now 11-ft. tall and 11-ft. wide.  About 10+ years old. I don't remember exactly when it was planted.

Here 500 miles north of the citrus belt anything but trifoliate and FD are not cold hardy.
There are many, many seville orange trees growing around here because the graft got frozen
away. Lots of trees used to come from the Valley which uses sour orange exclusively. Now the local
growers switched from trifoliate to citrange. I take advantage use sevilles for marmalade as someone I know usually
has bushels of inedible seville fruit without a use.

The predominant root stock now is carrizo citrange not because it is cold hardy
but because it grows a bigger tree in one year than trifoliate. Big sells. When a tree freezes the average homeowner has
no explanation for why but it is likely the root stock not being cold tolerant.

My experience with swingle is that the tree grows 4x as fast as one on flying dragon. I've been growing trees on FD since 2000 but
would have got a lot more fruit if on swingle. Since 2000 there hasn't been any citrus killing
freezes so choice of root stock hasn't been very important. I now prefer swingle and know a guy with a large bearing swingle tree.

In this year's 19F my one tree on swingle had bark cracking damage while the one on sour orange killed the graft.

Seville sour orange in my opinion is an excellent root stock. It is rated good for high pH, clay soil, freezes, extra good for wet soils and generally produces fairly high yields with fruit high in juices.  On the other hand I also like Flying Dragon as a root stock (kind of both sides of the spectrum).

Sour orange is much more likely to freeze in the ground than the trifoliates. It never really goes dormant.
It is much more vigorous than trifoliate or flying dragon. The only tree I had freeze in last winter's two
nights of 19F for a few hours was on sour orange. It killed the trunk back to around 6 inches. The caliper was
around 1 1/4 inches. I bark grafted the rootstock and now after less than 6 months growing the scion has
nearly overtaken the stump.

Lately however I am preferring the more vigorous rootstocks like swingle (which I can get seeds for.) With the uncertainty of greening no sense
going for a slow growing rootstock like trifoliate or flying dragon.

Never had one out of thousands killed by fungus. Cover the whole bud or not?

I've got it with the first fruit this year in a 7 gallon pot. It's now
called smith red blood.