Author Topic: Calamondin as female parent  (Read 987 times)

martweb

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Calamondin as female parent
« on: February 28, 2023, 03:12:14 AM »
Calamondin is known as being highly nuccelar, but it can form a number of real hybrids for example with Poncirus. Could you all share your progress reports when using Calamondin as female parent?
« Last Edit: February 28, 2023, 04:48:55 AM by martweb »

Till

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2023, 09:17:02 AM »
As I wrote elsewhere I could produce a number of hybrids with poncirus. Calamondin seeds with poncirus hybrids tend to be monoembryonic. The latest poncirus hybrids are three with precocious poncirus.

It seems that it is also easy to create hybrids with C. ichangensis. I got a handfull seeds with pale color instead of the usual green color. The seedlings are still alive but suffered from root problems. I hope they will recover. When they produce more leaves I can offer the definite prove that they are hybrids.

All seedlings that were not hybrids from planned pollination looked exactly the same and will be of nucellar origin. These are the vast majority (hundreds meanwhile).

pagnr

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2023, 01:32:27 PM »
It has good properties as the female parent. It reliably sets and holds fruit normally without much trouble.
It has genes from Mandarin type Citrus and Fortunella. If You pollinate from a Citrus distant from these two, the hybrid will genes from 3 Citrus groups
The fruit are sour but without unusual off flavours.
It is said to be nucellar, but I have also got variable seedlings from Calamondin, not crossed, just interesting variations.

Till

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2023, 05:28:23 AM »
And it has very good roots. It seems to be immune against root rod and can handle loamy soil. My experience.

When you let the fruits hang on the tree very long they get quite sweet while acids remain high. I guess that is kumquat influence. Good question how that is passed on to offspring.

In crosses with Poncirus offspring has thorns only half as long as Poncirus.

orangedays

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2023, 06:11:15 PM »
 I have made a few crosses with calamondin as the female.  I find it difficult to emasculate as it has small flowers. I had a low number of hybrids in a large number of seed so it was more trouble to use it as the female parent, than using it as a pollen parent crossed to a citrus with higher rates of zygotes.  I agree that it doesn't drop the fruit after pollination, a very nice feature in the female parent.

martweb

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #5 on: March 03, 2023, 11:03:41 PM »
How high was your percentage?

orangedays

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2023, 05:42:07 PM »
Not good. I found six seedlings with trifoliate leaves among dozens of calamondin seedlings. I made several dozen pollinations, and each fruit had 4-6 seeds.  So it was not a good return for all the work, and then 4 of the seedlings developed bleached leaves and are wilting.  Sadly, only two are looking good at this point.  However I put calamondin pollen on changsha and got what I think is a dozen changsha-calmonding hybrids out of 3 fruit, each fruit with around 30 seed. But being optimistic, I am trying again this year pollinating calamondin with PT pollen.

Till

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2023, 05:55:37 PM »
I never castrated the flowers. When I pollinated with Poncirus I still had a number of hybrids. Hybrids tend to be healthy but are not very strong growers. Pure Calamondin grows faster than the hybrids.
Sucess rate was also low as I wrote. But I did not care a lot about the low rate because I had enough flowers and could easily recognize the hybrids. And I did not put much effort in pollination. I used younger and older flowers alike, did not castrate them and did not prevent open pollination. Yet I got a handful hybrids each year, some were weak, some were ok. So it was an acceptable output for the small effort.

orangedays

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #8 on: March 08, 2023, 09:32:03 AM »
Till that makes great sense when pollinating with PT where the zygotes are easy to distinguish.  I will try this with key lime which seems to have a great deal of separation between the stigma and anthers as well.  Have any of your calamondin X PT hybrids reached bearing age? If so what are the fruit like?

Till

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2023, 01:51:40 PM »
My seedlings are mostly small. But one bush may bloom next year. No flowers yet.

pagnr

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2023, 01:58:31 PM »
Another good point about Calamondin is that it is reasonably fast to fruit from seed, maybe 5 years, certainly not 15.
The plant is on the smaller side, so possibly the node count for flowering is lower ?
It doesn't take too many growth seasons to get to full size
Either way you won't be waiting those long years for the hybrid to flower, depending on the other parent.

I remember reading about another Phillipines variety Calamandarin.
I think both it and Calamondin were also used as rootstocks over there.
Interesting that other Calamondin hybrids are not well known or heard of, even though Calamondin / Kalamansi is cemented in Philippines culture.

The success rate of hybrids is an interesting question.
If the rate is low, you have a few much wanted plants to deal with and a bigger bunch of unwanted plants to deal with.
You may be able to use these as rootstocks for the hybrids ?
I have found it nearly essential to graft from hybrids to ensure survival long term.
(Some of my most interesting unusual off type seedlings now only survive on rootstocks, the originals often died.)
Also you can easily then multiply a few hybrid seedlings to many seperate plants on rootstock.
Grafting to other more established rootstock will also push the hybrid to flowering faster by growth alone.
After that you can either repeat the hybridisation cross, or just grow the next generation seedlings of the first hybrid to get more variable " hybrid " types.
That might be more interesting if they are zygotic, as you are reshuffling the original hybrid cross for new versions.

If the hybrid success rate is high, you have a lot of plants to deal with, pot up, possibly graft, and assess long term for worthwhile characters.
I am pretty sure professional breeders throw out a lot of interesting stuff that doesn't meet the original reason for the  hybridisation cross often based on arbitrary reasons.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2023, 02:01:01 PM by pagnr »

Millet

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2023, 04:06:38 PM »
I planted a Sour Orange seed that I received from a Catholic Nun in a New Jersey Convent, and it fruited in its 8th year.  Now it produces more fruit then I can ever use.

pagnr

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #12 on: March 09, 2023, 02:41:20 PM »
I planted a Sour Orange seed that I received from a Catholic Nun in a New Jersey Convent, and it fruited in its 8th year.  Now it produces more fruit then I can ever use.

It is hard to work out if that is due to luck, good management or Divine Intervention ??

Till

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Re: Calamondin as female parent
« Reply #13 on: March 20, 2023, 04:38:11 PM »
The final sucess rate is indeed something else than the number of hybrids produced. I had to throw away some Calamondin hybrids because their roots were too weak and got rotten. But in the same pot were other hybrids that did better. I tend to save everything by grafting. But the more hybrids I have produced the more often I say to myself: "Don't save plants that only cause you trouble. You want healthy hybrids not just hybrids. So be happy for what grows well and be happy for any weak plant that you get rid off. Better it dies soon than it makes you trouble for years."

My latest Calamondin hybrids were three with fast flowering poncirus (from Laaz). All had tender roots. All had yellow leaves in loamy garden soil (what pure Calamondin likes). I repotted them two times into better earth. At the end one survived with zero root growth and two died of root rod. I finally repotted the remaining one again into loamy garden soil. May the leaves be yellow it at least had root grwoth in that earth. I hope that natural light will soon help it to recover.