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Ponciruslike fruit comparison

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Skandiberg:
Hi all,

Here is a comparison of 6 different fruits. First off, I want to say a massive thanks to Usirius who sent me some of the fruits he grew and received.
In every case I chose the softest one for testing. This wasn't a good choice for all of them, you will see my edited comment at Poncirus#7. And I had two Poncirus #8 fruits, one of which was used for the test but it's already losing quality. I didn't cut up the other one for a retaste because my refractometer will arrive next week and I want to do a measurement on them all. If the second fruit is any better, I will update the post, and I will add the Brix data as well.
Please note that I'm not experienced at such things. If you have any suggestions how to make this comparison better or more informative, don't hesitate to comment. I still have some fruits left.

So let's start!



Random PT from Germany

Average weight 50g
Brix 12,5
They are all overripe, brown spots. Probably this was the earliest to mature. Floral fragrance, not bad, but cut up its scent is piney bitter.
Not too much juice from hand squeeze. Juice is not very bad at first. Very sour, then came the dominant bitterness and stickiness. As soon as I dig deeper with the tip of the knife, the resin is everywhere. Not good. Very tough core. The rind is awfully terrible, if there is a term like that.



HRS899 O/Q from Germany

Average weight 25g
Brix 12,5
Pleasant fragrance, less sharp and floral, I smell some deep sweet earthy notes. Rind is terrible.
Wow, green flesh!
The core is softer, barely anything. Quite thick albedo.
It has some stickiness and a slight bitter aftertaste. But the overall first taste is something completely different! I swear it has some minimal sweetness. A lot milder. Obviously there is something exciting going on. A little like a tart green apple, mixed with some green cucumber aroma. I can't put my finger on it but it's exotic and much much better than all the rest. Quite juicy, I easily squeezed all the juice by hand. Not as sticky as the PT.
I became so curious that I opened up a few more and one was yellow, the others were lime green. One had no seeds at all. I added water to it and it was great (even not sweetened) without off flavours. Tropical. I love this one.




Poncirus #8 (an improved selection of Poncirus #7 from Germany)

80g/2 pieces
Brix 16,5 (It was so dry that I couldn't get a drop out of it. So I touched the flesh to the lens of the refractometer but some pulp also got there. So it's probably much lower in reality rhan the value I got.)
Pleasant scent, a bit colder and lemony, sweetish.
Not bad. I think it's a bit too old so it's drier than it ideally should be. Still, I could squeeze some juice out of it. Very very bad rind.
The juice is tasty. Bitter and piney but I also detect some orange aroma in the background. There is resin in the flesh. Its overall aroma is better than PT but it's too bitter to me. This fruit is overripe, I'm sure it was a lot better a week ago.




Flying Dragon from Germany

Average weight 20g
Brix 10,5
Nice scent. Bad rind, bitter, sticky and piney.
Surprisingly thin albedo.
As I cut it up, it smelled bitterish instantly but it has some interesting, slightly mint-like notes.
Very piney and bitter. Surprisingly juicy, I can easily squeeze its juice by hand. The basic taste itself is interesting, fairly lemon-like and intensely sour but the sticky bitterness ruins the otherwise not bad experience. Still, it's better than PT.




Poncirus #7 (It came from Woddlanders in the USA in the 90's. It grows in Germany)

Average weight 28g
Brix 11,5
Very bad and thick rind.
Also drier, probably past its prime but there is still some juice in it.
Lemony taste, milder and more neutral, better than Poncirus 8 (which is too dry now). Also sticky. Less bitter.
Edit: I tried the hardest one and it is quite good! It's also a bit dry but the taste has no bitterness. It has some piney taste and sticky resin but the basic taste is good. Not too sour, fairly mild. Much better than PT.




Bajusz from Hungary

Average weight 70g
Brix 13
Rind is sticky and bitter, but there is some additional sweetish orange-like aroma.
Fruity, lemony, sour, but somewhat milder than a lemon. No bitterness but there is some resin. The taste is good with lemony and some slightly tropical notes. I don't know why but this one has significantly the most and biggest seeds.




The biggest takeaway for me was the observation that higher amount of juice makes the same amount of resin and bitterness much more tolerable. Of course, there is nothing surprising about that.

Overall, if I had to pick one of the PT like fruits, it would be Poncirus #7 or 'Bajusz' by a narrow margin. The comparison is not completely fair because Poncirus #8 is probably overripe and on the dry side. Besides that, the Ponciruslike fruits were relatively close. Pure PT was the worst, FD was already a step up and from then on, I didn't detect drastical differences. Like they are different shades of the same colour.
But the HRS899 O/Q is in a different league. Its hybrid nature is apparent. I was really surprised by the green flesh. I knew it would be different and it is. The structure of the fruit is a lot closer to the normal edible Citrus fruits. A little Changsha parentage goes a long way. 😀 All the other ones had a more or less hard core in the middle of the fruit, but HRS899 had nearly nothing. And the taste is also much more Citrus-like. Hard to describe but definitely better, despite the fact that it also has some stickiness and bitterness. Evidently a good breeding material.

BorisR:
Very interesting. Thank you, Skandiberg.
I will also receive pontirus fruits in the mail soon, and I plan to compare them with those that I have. Regarding the comparison, there are several thoughts on how to reduce the subjective component. I will write about this later, when I have more free time.

Skandiberg:
Thanks Boris!

I would like to encourage everyone to use this thread for reviewing Ponciruslike selections in the future.

Jibro:
I also did a test of pocirus fruits that grew on smaller plants in containers in the same conditions. The containers were placed practically side by side.
Thus, the size of the fruits are smaller for some of the fruits than they would be from plants planted in the ground.

Swamp lemon was the earliest to color, followed by Poncirus Plus, although I pollinated them even on June 1, 2024, about a month after flowering Tachov, Sladka, Red Dwarf. I harvested after the first frost on November 2, 2024 and Tachov, Sladka, Red Dwarf were not yet fully colored.

They all had a good flavour without bitterness, were quite edible, but all of them also had a feeling of stickiness on the teeth.
Notes, dimensions, weights from the test here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11Oe6MhQVsK-aDFWg2N9l7cmq0MKHkW2zlo-RmtP3E9I/edit?usp=sharing

The sweetest was Sladka, which has a slightly sweetish taste, but on a scale of 1 most sour to 10 most sweet, Tachov would be a 5, neutral neither sweet nor sour, Sladka would be about a 5.5 - 6, the rest about a 4.

So the differences were noticeable but not too far apart for these better clones. So the problem is not even the taste itself, but the low flesh and juice content and the texture of the flesh which does not allow normal consumption, I scraped the flesh with a knife or my fingers and sticky substances stuck to both, although these were quite easy to remove unlike when I processed fruit from normal trifoliate.

 Details and more photos will be in the article on citrusy.info later.







For comparison, a photo of the fruit of Ichang papeda and Ichang hybrids, which also ripened by November 2, 2024 in my climate of central Europe with a shorter growing season roughly corresponding to USDA zone 6.

Skandiberg:
Thank you Jibro!

Very good review! I was amazed at the Brix values you detected there up North.

HRS899 O/Q hit me with its slight sweetness and good overall taste. And I hear this season was wet and cool in Germany. I wonder what kind of fruits that variety would have produced here after the long hot mediterranean summer we had. And now the very same question came to me about your PT selections as I checked the details you posted here.

It would be useful to compare the fruits of the same variety on the same rootstock but grown in different cooler and warmer climates. Acidity and sweetness would be obviously different but I wonder if bitterness and resin content would vary significantly in different climates. I don't know if their accumulation is linked to sugar content, acidity, general aromas, temperature, the amount of sunny hours or temperature. Or anything else or the combination of these.

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