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Messages - Melenduwir

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1
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Growing under LED’s
« on: July 29, 2022, 08:28:24 PM »
The pigmentation concerns me much more than the light.

I note that some compounds are less available at certain temperatures.  What temperature are these plants kept at during the winter?  I suspect some combination of watering/fertilization/temperature is resulting in deficiencies as the plant grows without the nutrients to sustain the new tissue.

Foliar feeding of chelated iron - which can be as simple as the cooking water from greens - might help.

With my own plants, my only goal over the winter is to keep them alive - they get weak light from a window with indirect exposure, and that's all.  They don't grow, but they don't develop deficiency problems either.

2
Those leaves do look as though they're carrying out some photosynthesis.  If it's a virus, the breakout is likely a result of stress, and so it's probably not going to spread; if it's a chemical burn of some kind, it's not likely to be a long-term problem.  In either case, I think you'd do more harm than good by removing the leaves.

My hesitant advice:  leave the leaves and watch carefully for signs of spreading or additional symptoms.

3
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: F2 Citrus glauca
« on: June 28, 2022, 03:34:32 PM »
Wild, open-pollinated plants can be more diverse than we've come to expect from our experience with domesticated cultivars even if they're pure species-type.

4
I'd be lime if I Kusaie I Nu.

5
That pun went right over your head, huh.

6
Citrus General Discussion / Re: 4-leaved yuzu Seedling
« on: June 17, 2022, 03:56:21 PM »
I suspect, as others have said, that this is a hybrid.  But it's at least possible that it's a mutation.

You'd have to let it grow out, and possibly set fruit, before reaching any firmer conclusions, and that could take a very long time, yes?  On the other hand, if it sets fruit relatively quickly, it's almost certainly not pure yuzu, which can take up to a decade to produce.

You might have a very valuable plant there, in terms of interest and possible future breeding rather than money, regardless of whatever it turns out to be descended from.

7
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Weird wilting of lemon tree leaves
« on: May 18, 2022, 04:03:47 PM »
Alas, trees can sunburn too!  In nature they're constantly outside, and gradually react to sun and wind as they change over the seasons - so gradually that we don't usually perceive the way they adapt themselves to conditions.  But a sudden and dramatic change, like going from indoors to outdoors, is unnaturally fast and doesn't permit them to protect themselves.

8
Citrus General Discussion / Re: whick rootstock is this?
« on: May 13, 2022, 09:23:15 PM »
My experience with sour orange is limited to the single seedling I have.  Although I must say it rather resembles the rootstock in question, at least so far.

I am inclined towards the opinion that it's an alemow, now.

Perhaps comparing to the images at http://citruspages.free.fr/trifoliates.php would be helpful?  (It's about rootstocks, not just trifoliata.)

9
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: new thoughts on breeding hardier citrus
« on: May 13, 2022, 04:28:37 PM »
Re:  sweetness vs sourness in crosses:

Wikipedia's page on mandarins notes that the wild mandarins that gave rise to the domesticated varieties have similar levels of sugar when compared to wild sour mandarins - but up to 90-fold less citric acid than them.

Lemons famously have more sugar than strawberries, but it's their acid that makes people perceive them as sour.  I agree that the key to producing 'sweet' fruit would be to concentrate on eliminating the biochemical pathways responsible for acid production - although given that acidless citrus strains are often perceived as 'insipid' and 'not-citruslike' I'm not sure a complete elimination would really be ideal.

10
Citrus General Discussion / Re: whick rootstock is this?
« on: May 13, 2022, 04:08:23 PM »
Yeah, not trifoliata.  It doesn't quite look like rough lemon to me, although I can't quite rule it out.

Perhaps sour orange?  It's a common rootstock for oranges.  And I believe it has those distinct but slender petioles.

11
Citrus General Discussion / Re: looking for interesting varieties
« on: May 13, 2022, 04:04:41 PM »
I don't understand why the war was even brought up, aside from noting that it will probably make importing much more difficult.

I can see why a professional orchardist would desire very uniform plants that are exactly true-to-type, but a home grower can afford to have something a little more unique.  And you can actually perform breeding experiments with zygotic strains, something moderately-to-extremely difficult with nucellar ones.

12
Citrus General Discussion / Re: looking for interesting varieties
« on: May 11, 2022, 02:05:56 PM »
Importing interesting varieties will be difficult for quite some time to come.  However, you might be able to make some of your own.

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/04/fruit-trenches-cultivating-subtropical-plants-in-freezing-temperatures.html

There are multiple interesting things about that article, especially in terms of Russian/Soviet history.  One of the most important in my view is the bit about selecting for especially cold-hardy varieties of mandarins.  It's something that's hard to do with nucellar strains, but merely requires patience and practice with zygotic strains.

Imagine developing a variety of citrus that can grow vigorously on its own roots in your local soil and tolerate your local climate with relative ease.

13
What I've heard is that it can and does accept pollen, even by accident.  It may be something like Eureka and Lisbon lemons, that are roughly 30-33% nucellar, or possibly it's uniformly zygotic.  No one on the Internet seems to have stats about its nucellar status, but there are numerous reports of accidental crosses.

Try it and see what you get.  You may end up being the person who resolves the question for the citrus-growing population at large.

14
It seems to be able to easily form hybrids with nearby plants, so if it produces nucellar seeds, it doesn't do so reliably.

15
I was aware that Clementines are zygotic, and plentiful at certain times of the year, so I intend to extract seeds from grocery-purchased fruits when winter comes again.  But Clementines are known to have a certain amount of pomelo admixture, and most of the 'pure' species mandarins are mostly or entirely nucellar.

Then I learned that Kishu mandarins entirely zygotic, and I became very excited!

Then I discovered that every strain of Kishu that had crossed the Pacific from Japan that I could locate was an entirely seedless strain, probably genetically damaged.  So, as tasty as they may be, they're useless for my purposes.

Does anyone know where I could acquire seeds or budwood for the traditional Japanese strains of Kishu?  I understand that the Japanese prefer citrus with seeds as a symbol of fertility and vitality.

16
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Juice concentrate?
« on: May 05, 2022, 02:36:44 PM »
If you freeze water with substances dissolved in it, and let it sit, the ice crystals slowly push the substances into small areas that remain liquid.  Eventually there will be regions of ice that are solely water, and slushy regions full of - whatever.

That's how cold distillation works:  you take a fermented liquid, let it freeze, then pick out the ice.  There are limits to how concentrated it can be, which is why people also use heat-driven distillation, but it's a traditional method in very cold regions of the world where cold is free in winter.

It's part of why making homemade ice pops with juice is challenging - the water tends to separate from sweet juicy syrup that forms.

In warm regions/periods, cold isn't cheap - but if you're going to make a frozen concentrate, why not make ice at the same time, instead of expending all that energy to produce steam you're not going to use?

17
For smaller bonsai-like plants, I've actually had good results with the plastic containers used to package tofu.  The biggest problem with bonsai dwarfing is that the plants can require daily watering, but if you're willing to invest the effort...

18
What you've said is very true.  And there are a lot of domesticated plants (not just citrus) that reproduce in non-standard ways, especially with formerly non-self-pollinating crop plants adopting self-pollination as a strategy.

But in the long term, plants that don't prioritize crossing tend to be evolutionary dead-ends.

19
With the way the climate is expected to become more unpredictable, surviving last-minute cold snaps is going to be a pretty crucial trait to have.  And that's not even considering freak occurrences like Houston freezing over.

It's part of why I want to eliminate nucellarity as a citrus trait - it prevents adaptation.  Since it seems to have resulted from a transposon landing next to a key gene, I don't know if it's truly possible to get rid of it permanently.

20
Oh yes, trifoliata is considered suitable well into Zone 5, although it's not reliably winter-hardy there.  If I had access to land, I would put my upcoming seedlings right into the ground.

I don't have much hope of creating hybrids capable of surviving outdoors, I'm mostly just hoping for hybrids that can be potted and left outdoors as early and late as possible without having to worry about an unexpected frost.  I could probably generate a trifoliata variety that could tolerate even colder temperatures if it wasn't for that pesky transposon screwing up their reproduction.

21
I'm so sorry to hear about all the losses this year, especially the ichang papedas.  I'm making sure to keep all my citrus in pots, brought in as defense against my 6a winters.  Some of the very hardiest plants (C. trifoliata) may eventually go in the ground, but the plants I'm hoping to use to generate seeds will be pampered - it's their seeds that will face relatively harsh conditions.

We're currently in the middle of a cold snap that took nighttime temperatures from low 50s to mid-20s.  I only hope I brought them all inside in time.

SoCal2warm, have you considered pruning your plants into forms that resist cold?

22
Thank you for that feedback.  I guess papedas, like some other kinds of trees, are sufficiently variable in size and shape while young that I can't draw any conclusions.  I'll have to see what it grows into.

23
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Monoembryonic Hardy Orange?
« on: April 26, 2022, 03:59:06 PM »
It's worth noting that 'monoembryonic' does not mean "produces only one seedling".  There are plenty of citrus varieties that usually have only one seedling, but whose seeds contain multiple embryos.  A truly monoembryonic citrus is almost guaranteed to be zygotic.

24
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Nordmann Seedless - why?
« on: April 26, 2022, 03:54:50 PM »
There are other varieties of citrus that are considered to be truly seedless, as opposed to 'commercially seedless' strains that can have between one and six seeds in each fruit.  It seems to be due to a variety of mutations that render the plant truly sterile; at least one such variety is triploid.

25
Were the Key Limes the pollen or seed parent?  Several important citrus varieties are known to have been derived from Key Lime pollen, but its seeds seem to be highly nucellar.

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