Came across this sale on Ebay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-Cold-Hardy-Chinese-Grapefruit-Tree-Seedlings-citrus-2-Cold-Hardy-Chinese-/180850753461?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1b8b
I guess this is probably a citrumelo - any comments?
Perhaps we should tell the seller, as he doesn't seem to know what it is!
At least a couple of bidders seem to think these are worth over $20.

Sure is Swingle.

Citrumelo for zone 6 to 5 is not realistic. I don't even believe in zone 7a. Even in zone 7b Citrumelo needs protection.

That is also the UK Ebay site, he is going to get himself in trouble shipping those out of the country...

Through Ebay, I suggested to the seller that this was probably Swingle citrumelo. Here is the reply - the English is his, not mine!

Quote:

I'm still not sure but if this is not it; this is certainly the closes thing so far. There are a few things that concern me with a final verification; one being; I have only seen a few examples of the fruit cut open and it seems the yellow pigment permeates deeper into the white flesh of the rein and on mine. But that may be just that one particular fruit or it?s growing conditions. I plan on getting some fruit and sending some of my fruit off for comparison purposes once this batch of fruit get ripe. I?m not sure but I think the size of the Swingle is a lot smaller too. http://www.bugsforbugs.com.au/pdf/Swingle%20citrumelo.pdf fruit diameter 63 mm, height 75 mm; weight 124 g; = of the seingle; mine seem a lot bigger but I'll have to wait until the next batch to get better photos, weights such. The other being the location I got these things from. This was off the beaten track. This was in the mountains of china where the migrants were traveling by ox cart. Swingle were only hybridized about 100 years ago. And china was a closed society most of that time. So it might be a naturalized hybridized variety of something but it is so hard to tell. I got one other variety from the same trip that I?m going to be going through this same identification possess next year. It?s a small orange, very sweet, sweeter than store bought oranges but it?s about the size of a golf ball. It?s just starting to fruit. I hope to have a few of them next year for sale.

I can sympathize with him, finding it in remote China.
Years ago, I bought fruit of "long leaf lime" from an old New Guinea lady, at the Rusty's fruit market in Cairns. She was a rather small lady, and she always had a small stall, but usually something interesting like betel palm, or black Taro. Anyway, the fruit had plenty of seed, turned out to be Swingle.

Bad English but sounds good

Interesting find if it is true!

From the photo, size & shape of the fruit... It's Swingle, nothing more, nothing less.

I've always read that swingle citrumelo tastes disgusting, or at best "OK" if you have the palette for it. This certainly sounds very different to swingle, especially given that that the tree grows unprotected and uncared for in zone 7a. I'm also excited to hear about his small very sweet orange that grows in the same conditions! Everyone will probably be saying it is poncirus trifoliata lol.

It does taste nasty, but everyone has different taste buds... Sometimes you find a chance seedling that goes against everything you know. Here's a good example, a grapefruit tree that thrives in Columbia, SC that I believe is a zone 7b.

http://www.thecolumbiastar.com/news/2007-05-25/Potpourri/042.html

Great article Laaz, thanks. I hope one of my seedlings will prove to be as good as the Croxton grapefruit one day.

he has seedligs now :


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cold-Hardy-Chinese-Grapefruit-Tree-Seedlings-/180882724878?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1d73580e#ht_1503wt_881

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-Taichang-Lemon-Tree-seedlings-one-low-price-/180887922569?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1dc2a789#ht_740wt_881

And he's shipping them world wide. Can't wait until the USDA catches up with him.

Before he get catched ...

What you think about that Thaichang lemon seedlings ?

What about them? I believe Stan has grafted trees of Thaichang.

http://mckenzie-farms.com/photo.htm