The Tropical Fruit Forum

Yes, a good idea. I have pollinated my Chandler with Morton (and other Poncirus hybrids). ... Let's hope that seeds are in it.

Chandler pomelo has a triploid set of chromosomes (that's what makes it "seedless"). That means when crossed with another variety, there is the chance for the offspring to also be triploid (and even a very small chance it could be tetraploid, which could then be useful for a subsequent round of breeding).

The good news is that pure pomelos produce only zygotic seed (resulting from sexual recombination), rather than high levels of nucellar seed (genetic clones of the fruit parent).

Seeds should form in the fruits. If they do not, it means the fruit was not properly pollinated. 

(Some varieties of pomelo, such as Hirado Buntan, do not produce many fruits if the flowers are not pollinated by another variety. (Maybe slightly more than half of pomelo varieties require pollination for fruit set. But Chandler pomelo does not require pollination to produce fruit (parthenocarpy). And it is very difficult to find any pomelo varieties in the U.S. that are not the Chandler variety)


I found this:

"A pummelo that has been cross-pollinated by another pummelo is apt to have numerous seeds, but if cross-pollinated with any sweet or mandarin orange, will not be seedy."
https://ocfruit.com/Pummelo.php

I'm not sure if it is true, or why it would be true. Perhaps oranges just produce much lower pollen levels.

I also want to point out that Chinotto sour orange is mildly cold hardy. It should do fine in zone 9. It might even be able to survive in zone 8b.

I have tasted Chinotto sour orange fresh off the tree. It does have a strong nice fragrance. But the fruits are small, completely full of seeds, a little bit low quality.
Still, I would not completely rule out snacking on a Chinotto orange, if I were foraging in the wild and that were the only thing that were available. It's like only one notch below the level of edibility that people would choose to pick one and eat it if they were foraging in the wild. (The main reason I might avoid eating it is it is simply messy and the juice gets on your fingers trying to eat around the seeds, and the juice is somewhat acidic, a little comparable to a lemon)
I think it could also be good for flavoring alcohol, though it is probably not the best in the category of "sour oranges" for this purpose.

The Chinotto sour orange trees are very vigorous growing and low maintenance, growing like bushes. They do not need so much attention or special care like other citrus varieties.

Ichang papeda not doing as well as yuzu is fascinating, and really surprises me.

There is a huge Ichang papeda bush in Portland, Oregon, in the Hoyt Arboretum, planted right against the wall of the visitor's center. The plant looks like it's doing very well and I have seen fruits on it. (Though the fruits do not have any seeds, probably due to lack of pollination because there are no other citrus varieties planted nearby, and maybe the Poncirus trifoliata next to it doesn't bloom at the same time) The bush is between 7 to 8 feet in height, and has huge thorns, many of which are nearly 3 inches long.
The precise location is at the very top of a small mountain, what amounts to a big forest preserve that is surrounded by the city. 

The fruits themselves sort of remind me of kaffir lime, but a little poorer in fruit quality, and half in a lemon flavor direction rather than only lime. The peels of the fruit are moderately tender and edible, maybe analogous to Yuzu, Calamondin, mandarinquat, or citron. Sort of dry inside, very little juice, but I imagine the peel might be useful for flavoring gin (alcohol). I can eat the peel, but if I eat more than about one or two of the whole fruits, my stomach feels a little uneasy, slightly queasy. They do have the very slightest "skunky" taste, but nothing like Poncirus.
Probably not something most people would be enthusiastic about snacking on out of hand, but I imagine they could have some culinary uses.

This Yuzu tree is in Olympia, WA, in the Yashiro Japanese garden.

It was originally grown from seed, and is now 42 inches tall.
It is not covered during the winter. But the small Japanese garden is located in the downtown area of the city, and is enclosed by a high fence. So the spot is mostly protected from colder winds. It probably does not get as cold there as more open rural areas further away from the city. It's a very optimal spot. From what I've seen, if it were any colder than this, a Yuzu would probably not grow so well in this region. Pictures taken September 5, 2024.


This is an Ichang lemon. It is planted in a very protected spot, sort of a nook close to the wall of a house. It gets plenty of sun early in the day but is mostly shaded from afternoon sun. It is not very big, maybe only 20 inches high, but the leaves have survived through the winter and it has put out a good amount of new leaf growth this year. It was not covered last winter.



I tried to grow two small Ichang papeda plants further out in the yard away from the house but they slowly declined after the first winter, despite being able to put out a little new leaf growth, and were not able to end up surviving after the second winter. They just seemed to lack enough vigor to be able to grow fast enough and recover from the winter. Yuzu plants seem to be more successful here, but even then I had a bush (on grafted rootstock) that gradually declined after two years and finally did not recover after the third winter and died. I do have another very small Yuzu bush in the yard (further out from the house) that is slowly recovering from being mostly killed-back during an especially cold winter 3 years ago. I've noticed that the hardy citrus plants seem to do better if they are closely surrounded by bushes of other plants, which seem to offer them some cover and a little bit of insulating protection from both the cold winds of winter and the hot dry heat of summer.


This is a Dunstan citrumelo, or at least just a picture of the top part of the plant.

It has done very well and seems to be the most resistant to cold damage out of the many hardy citrus varieties I have seen here.
There's a bush at the bottom and then a tall leader branch that rises up with some more growth at the top, 78 inches tall from the ground.
It usually keeps its leaves, but there was one winter that was so cold that the leaves died and later fell off, even though most of the petiole segments of the leaf remained alive on the plant (that's the very small segment of the leaf at the base where the leaf attaches to the stem).
It has not yet shown any signs of flowering or fruiting, so it may take a few more years for it to get bigger and more mature.

It is important to keep citrus well watered in the summer, since the summers are dry in the Pacific Northwest. And likewise the desiccating effect of cold winter winds is not really a problem here (like it is on the East Coast), since the winters are almost constantly so wet. The growing season is not the longest in this region of the country. The plants mostly do not experience any real heat until after the start of June, and then by the end of October the heat is usually gone and the days are cold. There are only about 4 prime months of growing season, and even that is assuming the plants will be kept continually well watered. But on the other hand, the winters are mostly not too extreme. While constantly cold throughout the winter, the nights do not drop very low below the freezing point most of the time. This means there are many subtropical plants that can be grown in the Pacific Northwest that could never be grown at the same latitude on the East Coast of the country, and many of those plants can even bloom in late December or the middle of January. Usually there are only about 2 weeks in the year of extremely cold weather and snow. And maybe about 1 out of every 4 years the city only gets a very light sprinkling of snow that barely clings to the ground for a day.

I grew two seedlings from US-852 (Changsha x trifoliate hybrid) and one of them is trifoliate, while the other appears monofoliate (single leaves).
This is not the strongest example, since the seedling is obviously second generation, appearing different from its parent US-852.

Oroblanco grapefruit only ripens moderately well in the Mission Viejo area. It's still a little too close to the coast.
Probably would do a little better in the Santa Ana area, I'm thinking.

Make no mistake, the summers still get hot. But I guess the heat just does not last quite long enough throughout the day and year, and the warmth during the rest of time is just a little below optimal. And despite this, sun scorch can still be a little bit of an issue, so the plants do prefer just a little bit of partial shade while young.

I'm growing two varieties of osmanthus, which is in the olive family and closely related to lilac but has evergreen leaves (like olive).

location climate zone 8a, Olympia, WA, Pacific Northwest

One of the osmanthus varieties can supposedly survive zone 7 (but I think that rating is probably from the US Southeast), and the other is a little bit more tender and can only survive zone 8, but held onto half of its leaves through this winter (though it is a tiny plant, very low to the ground right now). 

I know that cold hardy olive can be grown in Portland, Oregon. Being able to ripen well is a bigger issue than whether the tree can survive there.

If you're referring to the smell on the outside of the fruits, they do have a smell. It reminds me of some sort of perfume sachet in an old woman's house, nice but not really very pleasant. That mixed with just a little bit of a cheap laundry detergent smell. It's a little more perfume floral and a little less of an edible citrus smell. I can smell a tiny hint of alpha-damascenone in there, which is the juicy scent of bruised green apples leaning slightly in an apple-rose direction, a little jam-like.

If you are referring to the inside of the fruits, I have tasted a poncirus hybrid. That is a hybrid between poncirus and an edible citrus. The fruits of the hybrid looked like a delicious orange when cut open. But the taste was more than off-putting. It's hard to describe. I could force myself to eat them, if it were a desperate survival situation, but as hard as I try, there is no way I can enjoy eating it. It's hard to describe. Something in the flavor was a little "putrid", that was the worst part to me personally, but that was only half of it.
It can apparently depend on personal preference. A few people can manage to half enjoy eating these fruits, I am told. (Though of course no one would prefer them to a real orange)

That being said, I have tasted a rare poncirus from a tree that didn't have the usual bad poncirus flavor. It was of poor eating quality, but had close to none of the usual horrid characteristically bad poncirus flavor. It did not have too much flavor, was rather insipid, but did have a little pine flavor, a little rosinous, with even less citrus flavor, the tiniest hint of lime and tangerine, I would say.
 

Here's a picture of the Ichang lemon again



May 27, 2024

You can see it's vigorously pushing out lots of new leaf growth, and the plant held onto its leaf growth from last year, which is still looking good.
It survived through the winter and was not covered. But it is planted up against a wall, and is in a protected spot. It mostly only gets morning sun in its location.

I'm happily surprised it is doing well. (Again, it is not Ichang papeda)

Blenheim is listed at 400 chill hours, and is still my favorite. On the negative side, it is not the most disease resistant, and alternate bears.

Speaking from experience, Blenheim (also sometimes called Royal) still produces well in zone 10 (not 10a or 10b but right in the middle) but tends to only produce fruit every other year (once every 2 years). In this climate zone, the tree might do better in a spot that has just a little bit of shade and that doesn't get too hot, necessary for being able to accumulate adequate "chill" during winter.

Blenheim is a very excellent apricot, in size and taste.

I can share my experiences of an Ichang lemon growing in the U.S. Pacific Northwest climate region, climate zone 8a.

It started off in a container outside.
One year, during a cold winter, the plant was severely damaged and suffered much die-back. It was much more damaged than two Bloomsweet grapefruit plants that were right next to it. So I thought this showed that Ichang lemon was not very freeze tolerant.
But then another year it went through a winter colder than the first, and the Ichang lemon seemed to survive through it well, while the two Bloomsweet grapefruit plants ended up being killed.
The plants growing in containers were not far from the house, and got only moderate sun exposure during the winter.

Then I put the Ichang lemon in the ground, in a very sheltered spot on the south-facing side of the house, up against a wall. It was not covered or otherwise protected in any way. It was a moderate winter, with mild temperatures most of the time, but three days of moderate freeze, outside temperatures probably going down to maybe around 13.5 to 14.5 °F ( -10 °C).
It seems to have survived well, and as of March 15, the leaves are not looking too unhealthy, looks like it will do well and grow a lot this year.

I can also point out I planted two small Ichang papeda plants in the ground, further away from the house, and both of them did not end up surviving. Declined a little bit after going through the first winter, and then were finally killed by the second winter, even though the second winter was not as cold as the first. Yuzu seems to grow faster and recover better than Ichang papeda here, but Yuzu can also show decline and be killed.
In this climate, it seems very important to plant in a protected spot, very close to a house, in an area that is not as open and will not get much wind blowing across.

Here is the Ichang Lemon. Not looking too bad. Right up against the wall of the house.




Here is the Dunstan citrumelo. The top branch which goes up (and is too tall to fit into the picture) is 5 feet and 7 inches high (170 cm).
It's doing very well, still has its leaves.




pictures taken February 26, 2024

Furthermore, if multiple research projects reach the same point and one proposes something different, science is consolidated by evidence and because its results are repeatable, not by exceptions.

Unfortunately I think you are confusing "science" with what this actually is.
(You are making an error in reasoning known as equivocation fallacy)

You are treating this as if these are different experiments that each prove the same thing. In actuality, each of these studies are just examining certain markers. Probably many of those markers overlap between the different studies.
It is not really fair to say that because multiple studies have pointed to the same result that it means this is much greater evidence than if it were just one of these studies.

It might be more appropriate to view this in terms of mathematical statistics, but even to do that you would have to compare exact genetic markers between these studies, which would be difficult (for us).

If some people here reinterpret research results based on taste and personal impressions, turn lemon into citron, turn the results upside down to suit their own personal preferences (I'm not talking about you, Lauta!), then this is not helpful, it creates confusion and is pure speculation and certainly not scientific.

I accept your criticism, and you have a point, but I think the specific example you pointed to, turn lemon into citron, is a really bad example to point to, on your part.

True, I did a lot of other speculation in my post, but that specific thing (lemon into citron) is a very obvious thing, I think. I might not have precisely logically derived it from the specific data, but it is common sense.

Unfortunately I am afraid there may be a little bit of a language barrier between us, so communication about some of these precise things might be difficult.