The Tropical Fruit Forum

Can confirm Walter Andersen. Also Dixieline has carried it in the past, not sure they still do.

How cold have you let your golden nugget get down to?

I'm in San Diego, zone 10b. 34F maybe? Not very cold.

That's a fine looking mandarin!  How did it taste?

Really good, maybe a little less intense/watery but delicious

Ok, just my update, I attended a citrus tasting by a group of CRFGs here in SoCal last week. Now I found that these two mandarins were the best in class, 10 out of 10 rated by everyone who tasted them.

1. VI-501, US Superna, it is a cross of Lee x Nova mandarin.

https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/crc3991

2. VI-585, Miho wase

https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/crc4047

I had Miho wase grafted on my tree and never thought it tasted better than an average mandarin, but the fruits brought to the tasting was so sweet (but only measure brix=16) even though it tasted much sweeter.  Same with Lee x Nova, I thought it would measure much higher but it was brix=16 as well.

These two were the sweetest tasting with good flavor compared to all the navel oranges, pomelos, Valentine hybrid, Clemintine, and other mandarins.
We tasted all three of the TDE (Tahoe, Yosemite, Shasta Gold) and the two above were much better tasting, also better than my Gold Nugget, Sumo and the rest.

I prefer the Lee x Nova since I saw the tree at the host's yard, he had 3 nice large trees with hundreds of fruits on each. The skin on this fruit is not as soft as Satsuma so it should have a better shelf life, and it won't bruise if you keep it in a container/bucket on top of the other fruits.

I had first fruit of both of these this year and they were excellent, much better than page, owari, dancy, and Kishu. I’m on the fence about Kishu actually. It’s cute but so small and fruit isn’t consistent.

Anyway, I went down the research rabbit hole as well and had to have these mandarins, 88-2 lee x nova, and Miho. A friend of mine has a couple big 88-2 trees and it blew me away, had to have it! Kaz, I agree I think these 2 are in the top along with gold nugget, Shiranui, Shasta and Tahoe.

Also, if you are mandarin shopping you might like my tasting video of 8 different mandarins. I had my wife and daughter as testers. Unfortunately the Miho and 88-2 are early season and already all eaten so didn’t make the video. First time doing a video like this and it was pretty fun

https://youtu.be/aj_cOk9m8ak?si=roii0mYipblSy5tP

My sumo tree, just took a few pictures today:

Great looking fruit

Here is one of my trees. They a still a somewhat tart but very good. They just don’t have the distinctive knob on top. Labeled Shiranui

I saw an old post from 2018 where SoCal2warm grew out some Oro Blanco seeds.
https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=25082.0

I have not seen him post the resulting plants but I have a Oro Blanco with about 100 fruits this year, and have harvested about 30 so far and found 3 seeds. I do not recall ever getting seeds but I have some newer Triploid trees that have fruited this year, Tahoe Gold, Shasta gold. I got excited thinking I could make something new, like a huge mandarin or Cocktail like fruit.  I do have many many other citrus but Gold nugget, Star Ruby, and Olinda Valencia and Tango are the only ones in close proximity.

Can anyone explain how an Oro Blanco can be coaxed into making seeds and what the result might be?

Let me know your thoughts, thanks!

Good work finding the name. There are a few gardening channels I watch with English captions on.

using your search term I found this video where the grower covers the fruit in black bags and says it turns the fruit more red.
https://youtu.be/la-_RVi2heo?si=z93kxxw8AU40uriw

I will be trying auriculata / carica again this spring

The basic one that comes to mind that I think is compatible with all those is C-35. I've been happy with trees on it here in San Diego.

Valencia is always acidic tasting, will not improve. But good thing is, it will fruit a long time, my tree gets ripe fruits 3-4 times during the year when other varieties are not ready to eat. Cara Cara is not very sweet, like a pink navel. Washington navel is always sweeter and juicier. But the pink flesh is nice.

Regarding Valencia:
We bought a rental property that had a Valencia of some sort, looks about 15 years old, who knows. Anyway, it was ignored for years, had lots of dried fruit, shriveled, etc but also 2 distinct crops on it that looked good. The older looking crop looked fine but could tell it was leftover from previous year and the fruit had a little more give to them.  There was some newer fruit turning orange. The old fruit was picked and was the most delicious rich tasting oranges we have ever eaten. Then later on I heard this is done in Japan and they are called “2 year oranges”. So that is a way to get Valencia to not be as acidic!
I have a midknight Valencia and may add another Valencia just to alternate picking to do this

I saw your post about Chislett and am interested in that. Wish ccpp had it. I know they used to have Daisy SL which I also wanted.  They will have upcoming budwood available of US942 which should be a great rootstock.

Wondering what other varieties have been purchased out of our reach. Kinnow LS and Fairchild LS are a couple

I grow a couple ficus auriculata / roxburg, ficus triangularis, Morten bay. I used to have a sycamorous I grew from seed from Silverhill seeds, but kept forgetting to water it. Quite a few sycamorous around town, found another one today.

I have a few older Oroblanco trees which always gets many fruits. My tree has fruit clusters like grapes, and these fruits weigh over 1lb each so I need to put some rope to support the branches before they break off. I had one side branch (2" diameter) that was holding 110 Oroblanco, the fruits almost got completely yellow before the entire branch broke off.

You might want to add the Melogold (VI323, sister of Oroblanco) since it is also seedless, but sweeter, not much sour taste at all. On my Oroblanco fruits I can taste a little sour after I eat it.

Thanks for the advice on Melogold - it's been in my ccpp cart a few times but never bought it. I will try it. I also have Banpeiyu pumelo, Thong Dee, Siam Ruby and Bakouzba on my list.

My Oro Blanco has about 60-75 large fruits a year but has not broken any branches. Mine also does the cluster growth, some branches must hold 10-20lb of fruit but no breaking. These branches recurve down to the ground and it almost looks like it's a bush citrus. Tree is only 5' tall but 8' wide.

My Gold Nugget broke several finger thickness branches last year and I was able to save a few with poly grafting tape and support and they've grown back and look strong but I'm keeping the fruit thinned this year.