The eremo- hybrids, which ones are worth it?

[David Kipps]

Which one did you use as the seed parent, versus pollen parent?

[Till]

Hi David,
I always write the mother plant first when I write about my own hybrids. So mother was Changsha, an impressive Changsha with dry and unflavoured fruits - which will probably not be a problem as juiciness tends to be dominantly inherited.

I never got any fruit on my E. glauca. It needs a lot of sun and probably also heat, does not grow well in my climate. But I have serval hybrids with my Changsha. It has a reaonable amount of zygotic seeds. In theory 100% zygotic mother plants are the best choice for breeding but in practice the partly nucellar varieties often perform better as mother plants.

[Mirage]

Hi,

I’m thinking about getting an Eremorange for my garden. Was anyone ever able to confirm whether it’s truly hardy down to –12 to –15 °C, as some nurseries claim, or if that was really just a translation error?

[Rei]

I don't have a ton of experience with it so far, but I lost my in-ground small tree after -13°C. The Tiny Mandragore nursery in France reported no damage at -14°C. So it is likely that its hardiness depends on growing conditions.

Last winter my potted eremorange took -8°C undamaged without protection. Neither of my grapefruits, oranges, etc were damaged either, but they had yellow leaves, while the eremorange stayed very green all winter, similarly to my satsumas. So you should expect at least satsuma-like hardiness from it, possibly more depending on growing conditions.

[ethane]

Years ago I observed the Eremocitrus x Shekwasha hybrid in Florida. The plant itself is very interesting, the leaves in-between the cataphyll like the Eremocitrus parent and the leaves of a mandarin. I remember the fruit not tasting very good and also being very small (2 to 2.5cm). It seems like the flesh was dry or nonexistent. It's an interesting plant, but I don't think it's useful except as an ornamental. Although, it also appears to be resistant to HLB, for what that's worth (as are most Australian native citrus).

From a breeding standpoint it was also not very useful. I recall the seeds were highly nucellar, so not very useful as a breeding female. The flowers are also tiny, and extremely difficult to get pollen from, so not very useful as a breeding male, either. The flowers also fall off very easily, so I wasn't able to make any crosses on it.

Here's the plant I observed in the citrus collection in Winterhaven, FL: https://idtools.org/citrus_id/index.cfm?packageID=1179&entityID=8526

[usirius]

My Eremocitrus x Shekwasha, which I've been cultivating for over 10 years, has perhaps flowered 5 times in that period, but the fruits have never ripened fully. I consider it relatively worthless, both for cultivation and as a basis for further propagation.

[Florian]

My glauca x Shwkwasha gave me maybe a handful of tiny, dry fruits over the years even though it always flowered like crazy. I planted it out last year and it immediately carked it in its first winter. All my other citrus were unscathed, even my Cara Cara. The Citrangeremo died too but that one had some kind of bark issue.