The Tropical Fruit Forum

I'm still hoping to get my hands on a crispy honey kumquat tree to cross as a pollen donor. I checked every rabbit hole last year but couldn't find a legit vendor of plants or scion, only folks selling fruit. Anyone know if that's changed?

I'm not sure about the math either. At least until fruit comes into the equation.

Though isn't it true calamondins have kumquat in their ancestry? It seems possible that crossing two very similar but genetically different calamondin could possibly bring out other traits from the parents past lineage. Though the chances of the fruit following the leave's lead seems unlikely at best. 

I'll check back in when I have any real developments to mention. Fingers crossed it will be as precocious as the parent plants.

Welp, it looks like I'll be attempting crosses between meiwa kumquat, sunquat, and thomasville citrangequat... but not with calamondin yet. The calamondin, calamandarin, and owari sastsumas miiight bloom in time too, but they are just now beginning a flourish.

I do appear to have at least one calamondin hybrid from the first round, if not two. That's pretty cool.

I keep most of mine in the warmer parts of the house. I've had great results with LED shop lights or flood lights. Typically, I run about 130w of lighting per square meter of space. That's true power output, not what US advertisers would incorrectly call "130w equivalent". In a room that cycles from 70-80*F and 40-60% humidity, I get flowers and harvest fruit through the winter.

The other citrus and figs I keep in a damp basement that typically hovers around 30-40*F only see ~50w per square meter in LED lighting. Lemons and limes do defoliate to some degree in those conditions overwinter, but bud up beautifully and bounce back come spring. The wild thing is, calamondin will actually continue to ripen fruit in these conditions.

Thank you Ilya! That's the kind of thing I like to hear.

Anyone know if the seeds from the variegated Calamansi will grow out, or will they all be albino and die like most variegated fruits?

I can't answer from experience but what if you graft a branch from the neighbor's tree in place of the small fruited one?

I would like to ask you about your calamandarin. How would you describe its hardiness and taste?

The calamondin fruits I have eaten had a really nice mandarin flavour but they were sour as hell, lacking even the slightest detectable sweetness. Which is a shame because otherwise it's a handsome, productive plant with just the right snack size fruits. Is calamandarin a step up in the sweetness department?

If its hardiness was anywhere in the 15F range and it had sweet-acidic fruit, it could be a good breeding partner. Or it can be worth growing for its own merits simply for the fruits.

I can't answer that. I recently received the calamandarin tree from Madison Citrus after discovering that they exist. It's over 6' tall and looks like it'll probably stress bloom while transitioning to it's new home here over the winter.

I love calamondin but mostly juice them for pies and drinks. I too was hoping calamandarin would be a sweet and sour hybrid. I'd expect hardiness to be similar to it's parentage, around 20*F.

As for 15F hardy sweet and sour fruit, how about flame grapefruit? I was looking into crossing one of those with a Thomasville citrangequat or a meiwa kumquat, which are good to 5F and 10F respectively I believe? Could make for palatable new hybrids hardy to 15 or below... in theory at least.

I don't quite understand here, do you consider 6 seedlings grown from three seeds to be zygotic? A seed can only have one zygotic embryo (or none) and all other nucellar embryos.

No, I suspected those six different ones to be key lime or maybe even ponderosa lemon seed from last winter that ended up in the same large pot as the calamondin seeds. Either way, by my math only three of the six big thorned babies *might* be zygotic. But I'm pretty sure all are nucellar, not hybrids. Leaf shape, structure, color, and petiole say there is basically no way these are hybrids of calamondin x meyer lemon, key lime, or persian lime that were nearby.

Pay less attention to the energy of growth, except for genetics, it may depend on the amount of accumulated endosperm. Observe the shape of the leaf, the leaf density, the size of the internodes, the presence and size of thorns, and so on.

Among the calamondin seedlings (identified by smooth leaf edges and long petioles) the taller one stands out for many reasons. Only that sprout and it's bushy same-seed-sister have remained thornless in a thorny batch. It's the only one that hasn't branched out yet. The node spacing is tighter and the leaves are thicker than its siblings or it's mother. To date it also has ~50% more leaves than any other sprout.

Most of the small thorned calamondin sprouts are pretty similar to one another, leading me to believe most or all are nucellar. However, one has started to show much larger, slightly darker green leaves and medium thorns. But it still retains the smooth leaf edges and long petioles of the calamondin. I have hope that one is a key lime cross, though that particular hybrid would do nothing to push the boundaries of cold hardiness.

I'll get around to tasting leaves once they all have at least a dozen good sized ones.

That sounds amazing for a calamondin! Tell us more about it. Was there protection? How badly was he hurt? How long did the frosts last?

It's a random calamondin tree on it's own roots I got from a Lowes store years ago that has grown into a pretty, productive bush. It's also thornless, which is nice. The freeze occurred around the time it was a ~4-5 year old 2' x 2' bush in a 10g pot.

I'd left it sitting on top of a rock in front of the farmhouse in WV and wasn't expecting the insane cold snap we got a few winters ago. I was up in Ohio at the time and there was nothing I could do to protect it. So it saw a few consecutive days under 28*F, nights in the teens, and maybe a 10+ hours under 10*F with low lows around 0*F.

When I got back down afterward it was the only outdoor survivor! Despite defoliating and losing 3-4" on some branch tips, it eventually ended up bouncing back, though the next flush of fresh foliage showed yellowing, possibly due to root freeze damage.

That was not an intentional experiment or risk I took, nor one I intend to take again with a mother tree I very much value. But it left me inspired to consider calamondin for cold hardy hybridization and zone pushing.

It's absolutely possible. I tried the underground with cover approach with figs last winter as an experiment at my farm. Worked great at extending the season.

If you're looking at old world methods, check out the old European fruit wall designs. If you have giant boulders on your property like I do, they will work just as well.

For what it's worth, I did find an etsy seller who occasionally stocks these trees in the US of A. They are listed as "crispy sweet kumquat".

Unfortunately, they are currently out of stock, but I will update when they are available for the interested parties.

The one I had was tasty but didn't I wouldn't have picked it over most grapefruit. Guess I'll give it another go based on the rave reviews.

I take it trees and budwood are not available to the general public?

Interesting! I know kumquats to be compatible with key lime, which was flowering at the same time as the calamondin only three feet away, populated by the same bumble bees for weeks on end... however!

I only appear to have thirteen true calamondin seedlings from this round. Among the calamondin, there are a few with variations, but I think it's still too soon to even hope for a single one of those to be a viable hybrid. Particularly because several of seedlings are still quite small.

Six more seedlings from the initial batch appear to be something else entirely that snuck in. They came from three particular seeds. Three of the seedlings also appear identical, seeming to be nucellar key limes. I suspect that's what all six of those will all turn out to be. Dang it!!

That said, many of the trees I hope to cross have been crossed before. Others have not but their lineages are known to be compatible. Time will tell how those efforts turn out!

Wow! Now I want one of these trees! Seems like they're difficult to find in the US?

I hope to make a side by side comparison between Poncirus Plus and the Conestoga selections in the next few weeks.

Looks very nice! How many years old is that tree? 

I've got a new to me tree in Dayton and the deer have come up from the creek and exclusively nibbled the pakistan mulberry's leaves, even with ripe berry crops and ripe grapes feet away. It's looking very lollipopped but still alive.

Be prepared to protect your investment, lol!