I attended the citrus tasting at John Panzarella's house yesterday. He has 160+ varieties growing in his back yard mostly in pots, but maybe a dozen trees in the ground. I tasted lots of great citrus. There were maybe 50 varieties. I contributed wekiwa, ujukitsu sweet lemon, page mandarin, and algerian clementine. Favorites were nova mandarin and the satsuma x fairchild. Temple x orlando tangelo and Red blush grapefruit x Webber pummelo were also good. These crosses were made by Houstonians. John had lots of citrus hanging in his trees:
fairchild mandarin, cocktail grapefruit, sulcata sweet lemon, chandler pummelo, bloomsweet grapefruit, panzarella giant cluster lemon, sunquat, umatilla x moro, panzarella giant orange(http://members.fortunecity.com/pjsauber/Panzarella.htm), and moro blood orange. Clementine x yuzu 2 2 was very sour. I also tasted yuzu fruit for the first time. I am now wondering why there is so much buzz about it!. He is south of Houston and haven't had a freeze yet. Here in Beaumont we have had several already and some of my trees look like they are unhappy with the cold. I also talked with several of the old timer Houston citrus hobbyists, Louis Waldon, Sammy Powers, James Frances, and Terry Cuclis. The #?%!! mocking birds are now pecking my kumquats so I picked them to make marmalaide. Now they are pecking my sunquats. I never had birds eating my citrus before, just possums.
