“Starburst” Pommelo, what variety is it ?

[Lwpeter]

Our regional grocery store chain ( H-E-B) is selling an excellent pommelo marketed by Noble Citrus (Florida) as “Starburst”. 
It is excellent quality, very high brix, my wife’s favorite citrus.

Does anyone know the variety and if trees are  available for retail sale?

I went to a citrus tasting hosted by Texas Rare Fruit Growers before Christmas that had several pommelos including Valentine and Hirado Buntan.  None of the pommelos came close to Starburst.


Thanks,
Louis


https://noblecitrus.com/products/florida-starburst-pummelo/

“The Roe family discovered Florida Starburst The Roe family discovered Florida Starburst Pummelo over 25 years ago. We planted 5 trees...Then 5 acres... Then 100 acres. And we’re still increasing acreage based on demand each year.

[brian]

Sounds like it's a proprietary type you can't grow yourself

It looks delicious, though.  I've had some really good large pink pummelos like that, and my own tree makes great yellow ones.  I found bags of pummelos at Costco a few weeks ago under BeeSweet brand, grown in California, and they are the worst pummelos I've had.  Not sure if they are just a bad crop or it is the cultivar, but they are bland and with small segments that makes it more membrane than edible part.

They are shriveled because I left them in my fridge for so long instead of eating them quickly like I normally would.  I ended up just tossing the last one after taking this picture.


meanwhile, my Chandler pummelo from madisoncitrus has a fruit almost ripe I am looking forward to trying. 

[kumin]

Starburst fruit are high quality indeed. The ones I purchased had an average of 2 seeds per fruit.

[sc4001992]

What was the brix reading, they never mention it.

[Xenon]

This pummelo is not patented unlike their tangerines. The most info I was able to find is that it's of Thai origin.

Yes it's delicious with good acid-sweet balance and ridiculously thin skin (for a pummelo). Way better than the mostly trash pummelos from California, Oroblanco, and even the imported Vietnamese pummelos. I have some seedlings from 2022 and am growing out some more from this year, hopefully something good turns up. Yes I'm aware pummelo seed is zygotic, but it's really easy to spot pummelo seedlings from non-pummelo. Also, about half or more of the seedlings are albino and a good percentage look obviously non-pummelo.

[kumin]

Albino seedlings can be avoided by using an appropriate Fungicide, or removing the seedcoat at the time of planting.

[Xenon]

The albinism is genetic, probably related to self-incompatibility in pummelo. The few viable seeds are probably the result of something very low chance happening (or outcrossing) during fertilization and/or development that restores viability. None of my other citrus seeds exhibit such high rates of albinism (or ever, really), I've sprouted dozens of other citrus seeds and none of them ever turn up albino except for the Starburst pummelo.

[sc4001992]

I plant many pomelo seeds (at least 100/yr) from my fruits and I have not seen but maybe one or two albino seedlings.

[Xenon]

These are isolated seeds from self-incompatible pummelos. In theory, the pummelos should be seedless just like "seedless" clementine or Afourer.

In practice, every other pummelo might only have 1 seed. I've even gone through 5 or so Starburst pummelos in a row without finding a seed. Takes eating several dozen fruits just to get a dozen seeds. Definitely NOT the usual seedy cross pollinated pummelo.

[kumin]

Here's a photo of the Starburst pomelo seedlings that I'm starting to grow. All appear to have normal chlorophyll.

[Xenon]

This is my best seedling out of several dozen seeds. Notice the "pure" pummelo phenotype with rounded leaf tips, large petiole wing, and glossy leaf. A few others look a bit doubtful with pointed tips and less glossy leaves, somewhat grapefruit-like. Others looked obviously outcrossed, lacked vigor, or were albino/partially albino. Time will tell if your seedlings are pure pummelos. I'd be wary of the occasional fruit with many seeds, it's probably outcrossed.

[kumin]

The closest I've come to seeing similar foliage on seedlings I've grown has been when I over fertilized on one occasion and used Coconut Coir as seed starting media on another occasion. Unless Coconut Coir is properly buffered it can harbor high salt content, which I understand must be buffered rather than rinsed out.In both cases I was able to salvage some of the seedlings by unpotting them and rinsing them before replanting them into fresh media of different composition.

I strongly suspect your plants were exposed to some sort of nutritional imbalance. Another possibility might be light deprivation during the earlier phases of germination.

[Xenon]

Nope, I used community pots for the seeds and would get albinos mixed in with green seedlings of Starburst pummelo. Seedlings received outdoor light as soon as they broke the soil line.

No albinos found in Valenica orange, Autumn Honey tangerine, Marsh grapefruit, etc under the same care and conditions.

Unless you're referring to the less than perfect conditions of the seedling photo I posted. That would just be the wear and tear of partial neglect and the hottest Texas summer of all time.

My best guess is that the extremely low rate of self-pollination produces a relative abundance of albino seedlings while any kind of foreign pollen confers a dominant chlorophyll restoring allele (no albinos).

Here is a paper about inheritance of genetic albinsim in zygotic seedlings involving grapefruit:
"Inheritance of albinism in #grapefruit (Citrus paradisi Macf.; al2+al2−) and‘Hanayu’ (C. hanaju hort. ex Shirai; al1+al1−)"
https://www.alliedacademies.org/articles/inheritance-of-albinism-in-grapefruit-citrus-paradisi-macf-al2al2-and-hanayu-c-hanaju-hort-ex-shirai-al1al1.pdf

"It seems that the genetic albinism of a given Citrus genotypes is a stable trait governed by one or more recessive nuclear genes.
The albinism is not affected by environmental conditions and seedling age after seed germination, but recovered by greenrestorers. Some Citrus accessions with relation to grapefruit and Hanayu carry these genes. These accessions will be very useful materials for producing markers in experiments such as micrografting, breeding and chloroplast research in Citrus."

[kumin]

Thanks, it's quite interesting and I was not aware of this phenomenon.

[sc4001992]

good info on albinoism. I did have my Variegaed Valencia orange seeds I germinated with albino seedlings but they eventually died.

[kumin]

Starburst pomelo seedlings at present. Appear to be very similar. Perhaps homozygous? Pomelos are predicted to be Zygotic, these may not be?

[Millet]

Pomelos do not come true from seed. Does not mean the fruit may be better or worse, but it means the fruit will be different.

[Lwpeter]

Starburst Pomelo fruit are back in the store.
Just bought a dozen for my wife.

Still curious if anyone knows what variety this is and if there is a source for it.

[kumin]

Starburst seedlings in preparation for potting for Winter protection.

[dytandme]

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?

[sc4001992]

That pomelo looks like it would taste good, but none for sale here in SoCal yet. But I do have many real good/ excellent seedling pomelos that I have tasted here, and they are juicy, sweet, with some tartness. If you like the taste of pomelo with no acid then the Honey White pomelo is very good, it had a brix=18.