Thong Dee pomelo

[luak]

This little pomelo tree, about 3 feet tall carry that manyyyyyyy Pomelo’s, It’s beyond me. Hope I don’t kill it. These Pomelo’s each weigh more than two grapefruits.

[Mike T]

Wow what a great little tree

[luak]

Have all my tree’s growing small, not more than 5 feet if possible, so far, I am lucky. 4 feet tall, 5 feet wide, more than a dozen fruits.

[tedburn]

Hello Luak,
nice pomelo tree (valentine?).
I'm in zone 7 and got in march a flowering about 2-3 feet tall Chandler pomelo.
I' m very enthusiastic by pomelos, but I only tested Honey pomelo up to now.
Now I had also 4 nice balls and currently there are 3 left. Due to no practical experience in pomelo cultivating
I hope that you could answer me a few questions, especially you seem to be in the same zone 7 than me.
Do you know Chandler pomelo and can compare it to valentine pomelo ?
Often it is discussed that in colder climates (zone7?) the pomelos get not enough sun hours/heat and so don't get sweet, what is your experience ?
Due to energy safing I keep my greenhouse in winter at about 32 degree Fahrenheit, against a lot of informations which recommend to keep pomelos in winter not less than 50 degree Fahrenheit, how do you overwinter your pomelo ?
I heard that Pomelos need 14 month for ripening but also that Chandler pomelos are early ripe beginning of January, what is the timespan to get ripe ?
How do you recognize that your pomelos are ripe ?
Sorry for all the questions, but I really enjoy my pomelo and look forward to test a ripe pomelo.
Due to curiosity I took one of the four pomelos in October and cut and testet it, but it surely wasn't ripe, what I even not expected, but I wanted to see and smell. Smell was good, but still dry, hope the dryness was due to not beeing ripe.
Thanks in advance for your information.
best regards Frank

[luak]

 I am new to pomelo’s, the ones I grow are Thong Dee and Valentines. This is only the second year of fruiting from my tree’s. So far, they are keepers for sure. I like Thong Dee better, it doesn’t have that strong grapefruit taste, milder and don’t have a strong citrus taste. For me, it’s more like a refreshing taste. Got plenty of citrus/mandarin tree’s to eat from.
Other members have different opinion, hopefully they chime in.
Have a converted workshop to a growroom, heated, tree’s stay in there for 5 months. The nice thing about my trees, Thong Dee ripen now November/ December, Valentines more like January. Having 6 Pomelo trees is about right for me.

[Millet]

Luak, has long been a good grower of containerized citrus trees.  He generally gets more fruit out of his trees, then the average grower.  Besides citrus he grows other fruit trees.

[poncirsguy]

I have a Valentine pomelo on US897 roots that flowered and set fruits.  All the fruits fell before reaching the size of a marble.  It turns out that ants chewed the fruits off between the base and the fruit.  The tree flowered again and I caught what was happening with 4 fruitlets left.  I killed Many Many ants but not enough.  The tree is in ground 1 foot from the south wall of my house.  Tangle foot will only block 1 of infinite paths.  My question is How was your Valentine if you could describe in detail.  Do anyone know how to poison the ants without killing the tree.

[tedburn]

thats quite interesting, thank you for the experiences.
What still would be interesting, on which temperature do you heat your growroom ?
How do you recognize that the pomelos are ripe ? If they change colour or if thy get soft on light pressing between the fingers ?
Due to my first fruitharvest I really still have no method I would wait even til January or Februar and then test one.

[tedburn]

Hello Poncirusguy,
I also had the problem with ants at Kakis where they destroyed my fruits and I also had it in spring with the pomelo.
I could solve the problem by attaching a sort of pergament paper with two cable fasteners around the trunk.
The cable fasteners have a distance from the upper to the lower of about 5 cm.
The paper between the cable fasteners i brushed with a biological glue. Would like to post a pictures but currently I can' t upload  pictures.
But since I have this barrier I haven't seen even one ant at the so treated plants.
best regards Frank
No upload worked

[luak]

Growroom temps are 72* 24/7.( house temp 24 / 7 ).

[tedburn]

thank you Luak, so I see your pomelos get higher temperature over winter than mine.
O.K. will see how my fruit comes out in Early spring and if they are not edible  , I have next winter
to give them higher temperatures.