The Tropical Fruit Forum

I would very much love to taste those.. We have no citrus industry either but it is illegal to import anything citrusy from outside the EU.. just because.

Here's an interesting paper "Gastronomy and the citron tree": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878450X16300014
I myself acquired a "Mangiali" last year but it has not flowered yet.

Sounds like a nice and knowledgeable guy on Youtube. It helps if you speak Spanish . I would certainly like to see the crosses involving Citrus hystrix.

I have read that the growth habit of Flying Dragon is caused by one dominant gene or allel. So it could easily be outbread. But that would also mean that there is perhaps not one Flying Dragon around but many Flying Dragons with different genealogies, different numbers of zygotic seeds, different taste etc.
What is your impression? I have not much experience with Flying Dragon myself.

I have thought so before. The description from The Citrus Industry Vol. 1 (1967) cited by the UCR website says: Grown primarily as a potted plant, this is a highly dwarfed variety with very small leaves, the leaflets of which are commonly reduced to linear filaments, and slender crooked branches armed with large, downward-curved spines.. My flying dragon certainly does not have linear filaments as leaves. Also, I have tried to pollinate it a few times and not once had a hybrid which one would expect in a 50 % zygotic plant. And all of my seedlings are dwarfed and contorted; there has never been a regular type seedling.

I wasn't aware that there were different cultivars of C. taiwanica. To me Nansho daidai is just the vernacular name of C. taiwanica.
Anyway, here's C. taiwanica in Eisenhut nursery (their Nr. 171):



 

Early Sicily looks very nice, congrats! You say it tastes like a very sweet orange. Is there also enough acidity or not?

Normal clemintine or nule time is Dec to Jan, so they could be off season fruits, or produced in other weather areas, South America? Africa? or India.   

If they contain a lot of seeds, they could be cross pollinated fruits, which could be bigger with rough rind.

I went back and checked. They are from Spain, it says Class I. No seeds so far. Clemenules are in supermarkets everywhere now but they are all normal size.

I also enjoy Thomasville, it is sweet when fully ripe. Haven't tried Morton.

Only four fruit on my potted and none on my in-ground tree this year (no flowers yet). I picked one yesterday to see how it was and tried peeling it just for the sake of it. Still the best Poncirus hybrid I have tasted (and I still haven't tried 5*). I will leave one or two fruits a bit longer on the tree to see how they turn out.

Hi, just chiming in with my project of trying to grow outdoor yuzus in Helsinki/zone 6b.

- Started on March 2022 after ordering fresh yuzu for some seeds. Germination March-April.
- Moved small plants on my balcony during May for the summer. They seem to grow better indoors with lamps, but I'm low on space indoors.
- On October I decided to split plants into two groups. About a third I'm trying to make survive on my balcony during the winter. I'm planning to use various methods and see how they react to them. Some will be left fully exposured to the weather. Some will be stored on open and closed styrofoam containers. Some will be wrapped in frost-protecting blanket. Two thirds of the plants I brought indoors to grow some better roots & stem, and I will repeat the outdoor procedure next winter. Some of the plants I will plant outdoors next spring and see if they will survive at all in 6b zone.

The plants I'm trying to make survive the winter: https://imgur.com/a/g7wkLIE

Last winter Helsinki experienced temperatures going as low as -18c. My balcony stays about five degrees higher than this. Freezing temperatures lower than -25c are very rare in vicinity of the ocean, but occasionally do happen.

Welcome to the forum and to the wonderful world of citrus.
Your seedlings look strong and healthy. However, you will have to be patient for them to flower (5-7+ years). If you plant them too small and they freeze back, you might never see flowers.

If you don't know it already, you should learn how to graft and sow some Poncirus rootstocks. It saves you so much time (and money too). As far as I know, there are no or few restrictions within the EU, so you should be able to source budwood from other growers fairly easily.

Poncirus trifoliata is the only citrus that could theoretically handle your zone without protection. Have a look at less awful selections like Poncirus+ or Swamp Lemon.

And finally, citrus coldhardiness depends on a lot of factors. They don't like too much winter sun followed by freezes or prolonged freezes. It doesn't matter that a Yuzu can take -12 C or lower. If your daytime highs stay below 0C for several days or even weeks, it will cark it much sooner.

Your potting mix sounds very well-draining. That could be a bit too much during hot weather. I once used a similar mix and had to water constantly and the citrus had red spider mites all the time.

I also have a Hana Yuzu "buccia liscia" from Lenzi. It came with a few fruits that really had smooth skin. Oddly enough, later fruits have had a much more bumpy rind. It is not really smooth anymore. I don't have a normal Hana Yuzu anymore for comparison, though.

Prague, being a chimera, is unlikely to offer any genetic contribution towards further improvements in the pursuit of edible cold hardy Citrus. That's not a great concern for the collector or the casual enthusiast.
In the case of a breeder,  however, it's not especially useful. The development of the first edible zone 6 Citrus will hopefully be a zygotic selection opening the path to additional improvements.

You are certainly right, of course. I merely mentioned it because it is very coldhardy and sweet, which is what Mike is looking for if I understand him correctly.