Citrus > Cold Hardy Citrus
F2 citrange winter hardiness trial
kumin:
Walt, being of similar age as you, I am using brute force (large populations) in an attempt to increase the odds of obtaining very hardy F2 segentranges in a short time span. After planting a number of putative " cold hardy " cultivars that failed, I am seeking plants with nearly the full hardiness of Poncirus. I began with an initial population of 20,000+ seedlings. The seedlings are 85% nucellar and 15% zygotic, so the effective population under trial is 3,000 plants.
The seeds were germinated in April of 2018 and planted outdoors in June, 2018. These plants are not protected against the cold in any way. Survivors, if any, will be protected going forward, knowing they have the necessary genetics. At this point the population will be very small and easier to protect.
Googling "citrus tree seed California" will give you 2 hits that sell seed by liter or quart. If you need details on how to germinate large quantities of Citrus seed I can't make a recommendation, but I can tell you how I did mine.
Florian:
Check out the Hamlin x FD: http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=28270.msg321750#msg321750.
It appears to be rather coldhardy.
Walt:
Kumin
3,000 is a number I can respect. I stated in long term cold hardy thread why I think F2 citranges will be less cold hardy than than F1. But 3,000 trys? If I'm wrong about even one of them, you win. This is a real effort.
I think your chances would be better with older trees. But you are doing a big job, so do it your way and I hope you succeed.
Thanks for the information about seed source.
Ilya11:
HamlinxFD is certainly not hardy in zone 6.
I wonder if citrandarins like US852 are better choice for such large scale testings. I guess 5-10 mother plants will give sufficient quantities of starting seeds.
For the germination, from my experience, the best method is perlite/buggy approach used for palm seeds.
Seeds are germinated in zip locked plastic bag in moist, but not wet perlite at 25C. After germination seedlings can be transplanted in common pots to grow under artificial light and transplanted in spring in the open ground.
I am germinating each season around thousand of seeds by this method (my record is 3000), selection to discard nucellar seedlings and plants with poncirus aftertaste in leaves can be done very early, before open ground planting.
SoCal2warm:
--- Quote from: Ilya11 on January 26, 2019, 02:48:24 PM ---I wonder if citrandarins like US852 are better choice for such large scale testings. I guess 5-10 mother plants will give sufficient quantities of starting seeds.
--- End quote ---
I just looked at my germinating US852 seeds. Four of them had begun sprouting, and of those 2 of them were polyembryonic and 2 only had single sprouts.
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