Author Topic: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP  (Read 1240 times)

W.

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The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« on: June 19, 2022, 03:07:49 PM »
The CCPP (Citrus Clonal Protection Program) at UC Riverside decided to celebrate reaching the program's landmark 1000th variety by adding a landmark tree to their collection: the Mother Orange Tree at Bidwell's Bar. I am somewhat surprised it had not already been added to the CCPP's collection for its historical significance, even though the tree is just a type of Mediterranean sweet orange. But, it is certainly a survivor. The variety is labeled as "Bidwell's Bar."

Link to the press release: https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2022/06/08/you-too-can-grow-californias-oldest-living-orange-variety

pagnr

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Re: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« Reply #1 on: June 19, 2022, 05:42:32 PM »
"even though the tree is just a type of Mediterranean sweet orange. But, it is certainly a survivor. The variety is labeled as "Bidwell's Bar."

I believe the tree is fairly North of the usual area of Texas Citrus growing, and is still of some interest in extending the Citrus growing zone.

Don't know about Bidwell's Bar, but some seedy sweet oranges I have tried have pretty good flavoured fruit.
Also one of the best grapefruits I ever found was on a sweet orange rootstock, with a fruiting sucker of great oranges too.

Millet

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Re: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2022, 12:37:11 PM »
Mother Orange tree.   In 1856 Judge Joseph Lewis purchased three sweet orange seedlings from Jesse Morrill in Sacramento, California, and these were planted in the vicinity of Oroville, California in Butte County. One of these trees was planted at the west end of the famous suspension bridge at an area known as Bidwell's Bar and is still living and bearing large crops annually. It has come to be known as the Mother Orange Tree, and is now apparently the oldest and largest living orange tree in California.  Measurements made by an official committee on November 27, 1926, gave the size of the tree as follows:  Height 33 feet 6 inches, spread of top 31 feed 5 inches, circumference of trunk one foot from the ground 66 inches.  The tree is still alive today.

Taken from the book The Citrus Industry  Vol. 1 1943










 
« Last Edit: June 20, 2022, 12:40:10 PM by Millet »

pagnr

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Re: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2022, 03:42:53 AM »
Yes, it is clearly a California Citrus not Texas Citrus...
Well as the say in Texas,
"Remember the Alemow".

Yorgos

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Re: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2022, 12:57:22 PM »
Yes, it is clearly a California Citrus not Texas Citrus...
Well as the say in Texas,
"Remember the Alemow".
Its "Alamo"  the Spanish word for the poplar tree.
Near NRG Stadium, Houston Texas. USDA zone 9a

Melenduwir

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Re: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« Reply #5 on: June 23, 2022, 05:15:47 PM »
That pun went right over your head, huh.

hornad

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Re: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« Reply #6 on: June 24, 2022, 02:36:55 AM »
Yes, it is clearly a California Citrus not Texas Citrus...
Well as the say in Texas,
"Remember the Alemow".
Its "Alamo"  the Spanish word for the poplar tree.
And there are few fruits more poplar than citrus.

pagnr

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Re: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2022, 05:42:20 AM »
So I'm not the Lone Ranger on puns round these parts ??

Melenduwir

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Re: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« Reply #8 on: June 24, 2022, 03:17:52 PM »
I'd be lime if I Kusaie I Nu.

pagnr

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Re: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« Reply #9 on: June 24, 2022, 05:52:56 PM »
Kusaie Sera Sera

Millet

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Re: The Mother Orange Tree available from the CCPP
« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2022, 11:10:27 AM »
 
Jim Rogers
Jun 29
The 1,000th tree okayed for growing by California’s Citrus Clonal Protection Program happens to be California's oldest orange variety in the state. Dubbed the Mother Orange Tree, Bidwell’s Bar is a sweet Mediterranean orange brought to California from Mazatlán, Mexico, and planted in 1856. It was first planted near the Bidwell Bar Bridge near Oroville.
 Georgios Vidalakis, director of the Citrus Clonal Protection Program, poses with the Bidwell's Bar orange tree. (Photo by Stan Lim, UCR)
The tree’s survival skills are some of the reasons Tom Delfino, former California Citrus Nursery Society director, recommended it for the protection program. “Apparently this variety is very rugged,” Delfino said. “Not only has it survived a lot of cold Northern California winters, but the tree has been dug up and replanted twice — once to protect it from impending flood, and again to make way for the Oroville Dam.”
By suggesting Bidwell’s Bar for approval, Delfino was hoping the protection program would clear it so he could buy its budwood. On the occasions he has visited the original tree, Delfino said the fruit in reaching distance was always gone. “I think it must be tasty because locals grab it for themselves,” he said. “Makes me even more eager to grow and eat my own.”
Delfino also hopes that this variety will catch on with commercial growers. “My thought is our citrus industry is concentrated in the southeastern San Joaquin Valley and is subject to a number of pests that like the warm climate there,” Delfino said. “Though this has seeds, which may be a deterrent, it can be grown in colder areas that discourage some of those insects.”
California’s oldest orange tree arrived in California nearly two decades before the better-known Washington Navel orange grown by Eliza Tibbets in Riverside. “Bidwell’s Bar is an example of what was grown in California before the Washington Navel came to dominate,” said Tracy Kahn, curator of the Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection at University of California, Riverside (UCR).
Kahn says it’s important to preserve the genetic material from a tree with such significance to California. “Some people were worried it was going to die, but now we have an officially cleared source of this historic tree, and it is protected for future generations,” Kahn said.
The Citrus Clonal Protection Program, housed at UC Riverside, is the first of its kind in the world. It began in the 1950s, and its scientists spend up to three years testing and clearing citrus trees of disease so they can be released to commercial and private growers. By law, every citrus tree newly propagated in California can be traced back to one mother tree created at UCR through the protection program.
Source: University of California, Riverside

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