Honey Pomelo seedlings

[BorisR]

Interesting, seems to have some Poncirus and probably coldhardy genes. Interesting how hardy and how the fruit quality is ?

I found an old photo of my honey pomelo seedling, which had a triple leaf. Out of 100 seedlings, about 5 were with one double or triple leaf. Overwintering in the greenhouse showed that the frost resistance of these seedlings was approximately at the level of an orange or worse. I think that such leaves in pomelo seedlings are not the result of pollination with something trifoliate. Rather, it is a memory of ancient ancestors, which happens at an early juvenile stage.

[1rainman]

Those bilobed leaves look the same as the wild orange I found. It is not the best tasting but decent to eat with only a hint of poncirus in the fruit but the plant seems disease free and immune to greening. The pummello above could have cross pollinated with root stock. if it was something like swingle and only 1/4 poncirus it might be decent to eat but not great like the orange I found.

[sc4001992]

I wanted to show you my Chinese pomelo parent (Roy's) fruit leaves. It is not a Honey pomelo, but it is supposed to be a variety of pure pomelo from China. My tree is over 15yrs old now, and the leaves are the largest of all my pomelos/pummelos or any other citrus I grow. Also fruits tastes excellent.








Does anyone have any other citrus tree with a larger leaf? I would like to know since this one is the largest leaf I have seen on a tree. Must be a world's record.

[Plantinyum]

Never seen such big leaves on a citrus. Was the leaf on a young strong shoot, growing in the shade ?

[sc4001992]

Nop, the leaves are from the large tree you see above with the green fruits hanging. I just picked the largest one I saw and took some photos.

This year the tree is completely covered over by a passion fruit vine so I need to cut out the vine so my pomelo can get some sun light.

[Plantinyum]

Nop, the leaves are from the large tree you see above with the green fruits hanging. I just picked the largest one I saw and took some photos.

This year the tree is completely covered over by a passion fruit vine so I need to cut out the vine so my pomelo can get some sun light.

Yeah, i ment if the leaf was from the tree, but from a water sucker, which is a strong vegetative shoot. Usually those bear bigger leaves, compared to the rest of the plant.
I think i know the answer to why you have such huge leaves , your passion fruit vine is making your tree defficient in light, thats why it make big leaves, bigger leaf area harvests more sunlight energy.

[sc4001992]

Plantinyum, yes it could be due to shade from the vine and other trees. My large in ground loquat trees are 20 ft tall and I have many of them growing next to this pomelo tree and other citrus trees.

[Till]

Regarding the trifoliate leaves: I have somewhere picked up in literature that crosses between C. hystrix and C. maxima are also trifoliate. Trifoliate or even pinnate leaves seem to be the original constitution of all citrus plants and the expression of the respective genes is in citrus perhaps only suppressed by other genes but never totally absent. So I would also conclude that the Honey Pumelo was cross pollinated by a Poncirus hybrid but it is not the only explanation. Perhaps the taste of the leaves gives you a further hint what you have before you. If C. hystrix was involved in the cross the taste of the leaves should reflect that. If Poncirus was involved the taste may or may not reflect it.

[Florian]

I'm glad the seedling fruits are not exactly like the parent fruit. My pomelo seedling took 7 yrs to fruit and it is much better tasting than the sour fruits of the parent tree (which i got rid of). Now I have a very good fruiting seedling pomelo.

Florian, yes, please take a few photos of your seedling so I can compare how the leaves will look like when my seeds start to grow. I plan to let each of my seedlings grow until they fruit.

Plantinyum, can you take some photos of you 3yr old honey pomelo seedling and post it here, would like to have it for future reference.

Here you go. One of my seedlings.

[sc4001992]

Florian, thanks for the photos, now I can monitor my new seedling Honey pomelo and compare leafs with your older seedling.

I just checked my new seeds I got from eating 8 store purchased Honey pomelo. The Red flesh Honey pomelo had some seeds so I'm trying to germinate them. I see a few seeds already starting to open and grow a root.

Later tonight, I wanted to show you how different my Chinese pomelo tree grew from seeds alomost 10yrs ago when I planted them. This is my Roy pomelo which has the excellent tasting fruits. In my opinion my Roy fruit tastes better than either the White or Red Honey pomelos that I have purchased from the store. What is strange is that after I planted about 50 seeds in a planter, I just forgot about the seedlings and after years, I noticed only 1 large/vigorous seedling growing and a few smaller plants.

So now after 10+yrs, I will show you the funny photo of this seedling tree which is still in the same pot but roots have already grown into the ground. Since the smaller plant never grew much, I just grafted some Sumo/Shiranui on them but you can still see how small this rootstock is growing.

[sc4001992]

Here's the Roy seedling pomelo tree in the pot with 2 other smaller trees from the same fruit.

[sc4001992]

Florian, looks like my Roy tree has similar leaves but just larger. I grafted the Roy seedling budwood on my variegated Valencia tree in 2019, now that grafted branch is over 7 ft long from graft union. This pomelo seems to grow very fast. Here's a few photos of the leaves on the grafted branches.

[sc4001992]

The grafted branch split into 3 long branches which are about 6-8 ft long. Here's one that I could reach and pull down for the photo, it grows out from the rest of the Valencia orange tree which is about 16 ft tall.

[Plantinyum]

Here's the Roy seedling pomelo tree in the pot with 2 other smaller trees from the same fruit.

This has tapped into the ground right? The pot seems way to small to sustain such a vigor.

[sc4001992]

Yes, long time ago. I can't move it. Tree is over 20ft tall, I try to cut it back to 12 ft each year.

[Lado meskhi]

These are usually seedless but this winter I had a fruit that was full of large, flat seeds. I sowed them and they took their time but many germinated.

Now, I am wondering what to do.. I know pomelos do not come true from seed and our climate is much too cold to plant them in the ground but I'd still like to give them a try for the sake of it.

How long would they take to flower anyway? Any suggestions are welcome.

hi are those pomelos picked in february? On that month is seeded? I want to try but most of the time is often seedless

[70Malibu]

Ok, Florian, please update us on your seedling Honey Pomelo trees status.

I also have some good photos for you. I just found a person who owns a pomelo farm, has nothing but Honey Pomelo trees. Every tree is full of ripe Honey pomelo just in time for the Asian holiday sales. People come to buy these fruits for Christmas, New Years tradition.

I tasted a few fruits, it tastes very good to excellent as I remember eating the real Honey Pomelo fruits 3 yrs ago. The ones at the Asian market that is called Honey pomelo is probably not the true variety since I have never tasted any of the market fruits that had any taste, usually just a waste of money ($7-$10 each). The Honey pomelo I know and like a lot always has some seeds in the fruit, not always seedless.

I will post some photos of these amazing looking trees for you.

[70Malibu]

Here's the fruits of the Honey Pomelo.

[70Malibu]

Here's the trees.

[Millet]

You have a fantastic tree

[70Malibu]

No not mine, this is a guy I met who has a Honey Pomelo tree farm, over 50 of the same trees. I went there to buy some fruits he was selling. Now he wants me to do some grafting and air layering of his tree. So, I get the fruits for free, maybe keep some air layers as well. I might just negotiate a tree for me to dig up in exchange for the air layers. These fruits are really good for a pomelo. Most white flesh pomelos that are large fruits (3-5 lbs) have no taste at all, I'm getting rid of those varieties. My Banpeiyu still hasn't produced a 10lb fruit, only 5lbs and it tastes average, nothing to brag about. I was hoping for the Halawa to fruit, but my graft died instead.

[akimbo]

Here's the fruits of the Honey Pomelo.

OMG That’s bigger than my head! 

[70Malibu]

The largest pomelo in Japan is the Banpeiyu. These fruits are supposed to routinely get to 10 lbs- 11 ozs (worlds record size).

https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/crc3961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banpeiyu





Here's my largest Banpeiyu last year, not even close to 10lbs.




This year I see one large fruit, maybe a 6 lber.