Citrus > Cold Hardy Citrus

Kumquat x Poncirus

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Marcin:
Hi. I'd like to share my experiences on crossing kumquat with trifoliate orange.

I've heard many times that it's a really difficult cross to make, but I still wanted to try. So last year I've been making some pollinations.

Nagami kumquat x Flying dragon Poncirus
I used two different Nagami cultivars as the mother plants. Pollinated flowers set fruit easily, and seed set proved not bad. The seedlings germinated quickly, but soon some of them refused growing. Still, the rest is growing fine up till now and I hope they will stay like that. ;)


For comparison - standard Poncirus seedling on the left, Nagami x Poncirus on the right:


Reale mandarinquat x Flying dragon Poncirus
In this cross, fruit and seed set were also not bad, but most of the seedlings proved weak and generally aberrant. Some had strange, narrow leaves, and some were even monofoliate. Maybe these abnormalities are connected with the fact that Reale is triploid. Still, I think that with a bit of luck this cross is worth a try.


So to sum up, I think that crossing kumquat with the trifoliate orange is not such a bad idea. There's a good chance of getting a really cold hardy citrus with quite edible fruits.

What do you think? Have you tried making similar crosses? If yes, have you met any obstacles?

Florian:
I have never tried this cross but I will follow your work with great interest! Thanks for sharing.

mikkel:
Thanks for your report! Very interesting.
Could you please explain the other pictures on your photo account. There are many interesting pictures.

hardyvermont:
It is good to hear that you have made these crosses successfully.  I crossed Meiwa with Poncirus without fruit set.  Meiwa has hundreds of tiny flowers, almost all of them never set fruit even under normal circumstances. 

SoCal2warm:
You might get something even cold hardier on the second cross, that is, if you try to grow a seedling of the poncirus x kumquat hybrid. That would be due to possibility of recessive genes or weeding out a dominant gene that may be detrimental.
Unfortunately I would expect a poncirus x kumquat hybrid to be highly nucellar. You'd have to go through a lot of seeds to find a zygotic one, if there were any.

I've heard that kumquat x Satsuma can be pretty cold hardy, down 14 degrees F.

Kumquat is usually always zygotic, so you could always perform a second generation cross by using it as the fruit parent.
That is kumquat x (kumquat x poncirus)

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