I was in my local Supermarket yesterday and as usual when I'm there I have a quick look at the Fruit section for any interesting citrus. Usually they just sell bags of common varieties of oranges, lemons and possibly ruby grapefruit and Brazilian limes.

But this time they had Pomelos, they are bigger than grapefruit and a yellow/green colour.

Does anyone know anything about Pomelos please ? (Excuse my ignorance)

Also, do they have seeds that would gerninate and grow? Going by the size of the fruit, I think it would take a long time to get a tree to grow big enough to hold the weight of the fruit.

Thanks

They are tasty if you can get to the fruit ! Very thick skin! As for growing them one of the pro's will have to answer that one.

Hi Nick, Joan is certainly correct, about the taste of Pommelo. They are one of my wife's favorite citrus fruits. Unfortunately Pommelo do not come true from seed, so when a Pommelo seed is planted it will not produce a Pommelo tree the same as the mother tree. You will, however, get a Pommelo type of fruit. I think it is exciting to plant citrus seeds, that do not come true from seed, even though they usually produce fruit of lesser quality than the fruit that they came from. On the other hand, many citrus varieties that were chance seedlings, have produced some of the outstanding citrus varieties sold today. It depends on how much time, and how much room you have to spare for the next 10 or so years before the "Pommelo" matures. Take care, and Happy New Year. - Millet

Thanks

I'll let you know if get anywhere with the seeds.

Happy New Year

Nick

Wii it be advisable to graft pommelo's onto grapefruit tree?. I have some very young pommelo's seedlings w/c I've propagated from seeds & Im thinking of grafting some of it onto my matured grapefruit tree in the near future. Any helpful hints would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Bengy, like Millet said in the post above, pommelos will not grow true from seed, so your seedlings may not even be a desirable variety once you get them to produce fruit. That said as Millet mentioned, they is a very slim chance that they could produce a new variety that would be desirable.

By grafting the pommelo seedling onto a mature grapfruit, you will not get fruit earlier than you would from the seedlings-- it may still take over 15 years to get fruit. However, if you graft your mature grapefruit onto the pommelo seedlings, you will get grapefuit from the seedlings within a couple years.

Skeet

Bought 3 Pommelos today.

What would be the best way to plant the seeds.

I was thinking of putting them into v.small pots, but do you take the seeds straight from the fruit and put them straight into the soil. Or do you wash them or dry them first.

May buy more later and try the baggie method as well.

I'll be keeping them in the house until summer so temp shouold range from about 65 - 80 degrees F

Thanks

Citrus seeds actually contain live embryos and should not dry as that will kill the embryos.

You can wash them and treat them with a little fungicide or dilute bleach before planting.

Skeet

I would remove the seeds frum the pummelo, wash the seeds, then plant them in a potting medium made of 50% peat moss and 50% perlite. Keep the seeds warm 90F and they should germinate in 15-22 days. if kept at 65F they will still germinate, however it could take 40-60 days or longer. - Millet

Thanks, I'll let you know if I have any luck

Nick

Thanks skeet for your advice....I might still graft pommelo's onto a few branches of my grapefruit , just for curiousity & see how it goes. I don't mind if it doesn't bear tasty fruits as I only want it for show (or display). I hope i'll still be around when & if it produces fruits ?

Hi Bengy,
I'm not saying don't do it -- I just wanted you to know what to expect. At least you will get some practice grafting. You could also see if there is a source of budwood from a mature pommelo available in Australia.
Skeet

Well, I 'crashed and burned' on my first attempt at getting seeds from these.

Out of 3 fruits there was only one reasonable size seed and that didn't look in good condition. There were some really tiny seeds at the centre of the fruit.

Not sure if it's worth an attempt with more time and care to get these tiny seeds and even then would they germinate due to their size.

I think these fruits were imported to the UK from Israel, but the sticker on them didn't have a country of origin or more details. The fruit was a little on the dry side and they were quite hard skinned so perhaps not very ripe.

Nick,
Citrus grandis (or Citrus maxima) is correctly 'Pummelo' in English, but unfortunately often being sold in UK supermarkets as 'Pomelo'.
The variety being imported from Israel is 'Goliath', slightly pear shaped, which grows better in the Mediterranean climate than other types which require more humid, tropical conditions.
Other varieties are imported into the UK from South Africa, China and Thailand. Most of these are pink fleshed and have no seeds, but Goliath is yellow/green fleshed and does have viable seeds. These are mono-embryonic, so will be open pollinated and not neccessarily true to type.
I have a seedling tree from Goliath about 15 years old. It produces fruit, but they are too bitter to eat.
I also have a budded specimen of Goliath, which I have used as the parent for hybridizing experiments with Fingerlime hybrids. The resulting seedlings are now about 4 years old, but not yet flowering. See
http://www.saalfelds.freeserve.co.uk/hybridization.htm
Mike aka Citrange

Let me put my 2 cents worth.
I've been growing pomellos for 5 years now.
I think it is better to grow them grafted because you can have the fruit the same year.
My advice though is that you have to have a very high tempt during the summer time because if you have just the average climate like us here in Salinas 60 to 70 degrees average there is little sweetness on the fruit. I am growing Chandler.
So this year, I will just use my pomello planted in the ground as stock tree and been grafting other citrus on it and is taking these citrus very easily like oroblanco and others.
It is easy to graft many varieties to this tree.
You can order many varieties through Menlo Growers and I'd try Ebay.
Sure it would be fun to grow them from seeds but you may have to wait like Millet said a long time to taste your fruit.