The Tropical Fruit Forum

Thanks for the pics, Ilya! Is Ichangstar 60 your earliest maturing hybrid creation?

Just so there is no confusion. It is not me who has the Yuzu x Poncirus but flos from Germany . Of course, his name is Florian too.

My Citrus ichangensis IVIA does not have juice pearls/caviar like finger limes. However, the pulp is kind of mushy. One can scoop it out with a spoon very easily. My N1Tri is very similar in this respect.

The smaller fruits are often seedless while the bigger ones are riddled with seeds. I have counted up to 40 seeds in one fruit. The pulp/juice is just sour, I don't notice bitterness. However, my taste buds aren't great. Maybe there is a slight bitterness, I wouldn't know.

The peel, however, has a horrible aftertaste, much worse than anything I have ever tasted. The first few seconds, it is not there and then it hits the back of your palate. I am very bad at describing flavours. It kind of tastes like kerosene mixed with soap and lingers for quite a long time.

Reading this forum, I always had the impression that Xie Shan was among the very earliest of Satsumas. Is that not the case or is it just with Jim?

For what it's worth: my Citrangeremo has just survived its first winter with about -8 to -10 C on multiple occasions. It did suffer leaf and twig damage but only on younger growth.
Also, have a look here: http://www.homecitrusgrowers.co.uk/australiannativecitrus/eremocitrusglauca.html --> hardy to around -5 C in dry conditions.

I'll throw in my two cents worth:

I was able to pick ripe fruit of Eisenhut's Yuma and Sacaton in December 2017. At that time of year, most Sacaton were yellow but quite a few Yuma were still greenish. Both of Eisenhut's plants are undoubtedly Citrumelos. The Yuma is bigger and better in every way than the Sacaton. Fruit is about double the size and weight and flavour is much better (though not quite as good as Nr. 82). Sacaton is small, seedy and tastes awful with a lot of Poncirine present. None of the seedlings from the Sacaton seeds came true to the mother, while the Yuma seedlings appear to be identical to the mother tree. I have given away the Yumas but kept about five of the oddball Sacaton seedlings. They stayed outdoors the last two winters (down to -10 C, sometimes a week or so below 0 C) without any problem and kept all their leaves.

Sacaton


Yuma


Sacaton


Yuma

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.

Florian, I know its been 3 yrs now, just wondering how your seedling Honey Pomelo are doing ?

I'm planning to grow out some seeds myself.

I left them in the community pot for quite a while and only separated them last year. Also, I just let them sit in the corner and leglected them. They have grown quite a bit anyway but could be bigger, of course. I will take a photo when I get around to it..

Citrandarin US 852 and Sacaton Citrumelo are known to produce only about 50% or so nucellar seeds. Also, Ilya has made many hybrids with his Citrumelo 5*. I would prefer the 5* over Sacaton since the latter tastes awful even for a Citrumelo.

There is for example a nursery in France that has citrus fruit baskets now, but it is tied to what is ripe at this time. Not everything in it is cold hardy either. I've seen them sold containing Keraji, Ichang Lemon, and of course Yuzu and Satsuma. Throughout the year they sell citrus to restaurants. The window of ripe fruit is quite small, they are not processed and treated for storage in the way they do in commercial fruit nurseries. https://agrumes-vessieres.fr/categorie-produit/nos-fruits

There is not much commercial fruit cultivation of the hardy varieties, and if there is, then they will likely not have a wide range of varieties. Only something like satsuma and Yuzu I expect.

Best you can do is contact/visit nurseries that sell hardy citrus plants and ask what is ripe on the trees at that time. Or ask in citrus facebook groups or forums.

He's in the US, many US states can't even import citrus from other states, let alone from abroad.

Unless proven otherwise, I will assume you did everything right and the test worked fine thus your Kabosu is free of Tristeza. I don't have it exactly because I was told by the French that it had Tristeza. Might just get it some time after all..

Thanks, that is an interesting point. So, perhaps Lidl bought all the off-season fruit to offer them cheaper. I will have to buy a normal-sized one somewhere else and compare the taste.