Citrus Growers Forum

Scott_6B · Posted: Sat 12 Jan, 2013 8:55 am

The small fruit size must be a significant factor in its ability to ripen early, could you imagine a ripe 9lb lemon only 8 weeks after flowering!! However, with most things, I'm sure there are several contributing factors.

Citrange, on this board, who has the homecitrusgrowers.co.uk website probably has some knowledge on when Citrus glauca and at least the Eremowhat hybrid ripen in the UK.

In the US, the Citrus glauca hybrid at UCR (which is probably a cross w/ Meyer Lemon) has a listed ripeness season of May to Oct., however, the fruit are still quite small.
http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/eremocitrus_hybrid.html

I would be curious to see C. glauca x Persian Lime.
Would this result in a tree w/ decent cold tolerance that produces relatively early ripening fruit (early/mid summer) the size of a Key Lime?
I have a 6-pack of Coronas that might be interested. Laughing

Lemandarangequatelo · Citruholic Joined: 01 Mar 2010 Posts: 473 Location: UK

A ripe 9lb lemon in 8 weeks would be awesome, we can dream lol. Glauca x Persian lime would be a good one too, if someone can make it they might get some good trade from Corona drinkers Laughing

Till · Posted: Tue 25 Jun, 2013 6:00 am

Great ideas for future crosses, you have!

By the way I crossed Meyer with Sandford Curafora and Meyer with Moro blood orange this year. Hope the plant keeps the small fruits and I get some good hybrids.
Is it acutually true, that Meyer seedlings bloom after two years already?

Another idea: Does anybody know of Citron x Kumquat? I saw a picture of such a plant here in the forum (Buddha's hand x Kumquat) but Google gives no results. Sad and surprising if this hybrid does exist only once somewhere hidden from the public (or is difficult to make). I could imagine that a hardier Citron with a sweeter peel might be interesting. I found the taste of fresh Citron peel at least interesting when I was in Sicily the month ago.

bussone · Posted: Tue 03 Sep, 2013 3:02 am

Lemandarangequatelo wrote:

Citrus Glauca x Hong Kong kumquat
Citrus Glauca x Meiwa Kumquat
Citrus Glauca x Trovita Orange
Citrus Glauca x Pomelo
Citrus Glauca x 9lb Lemon
Citrus Glauca x Flying Dragon
Citrus Glauca x Fast Poncirus Trifoliata
Citrus Glauca x Sunrise Lime

Basically we should try Citrus Glauca with everything because it goes from flower to mature fruit in only 8 weeks, can tolerate high summer heat and light frosts (one pdf I saw claimed it can take -24C, this must be a typo), can be eaten whole with the peel, and can tolerate alkaline soils and drought. I'll buy one when I get the chance.

I wonder if the caviar-nature of the glauca fruit would avoid the rancid oil contamination that plagues Poncirus when crossed with standard citrus.

Speaking of -- anyone tried either Glauca or Poncirus w/ Buddha's hand?

citrange · Posted: Tue 03 Sep, 2013 6:03 pm

I find this talk of trying all these wonderful hybridizations slightly irritating.
Why? Because it's so easy to talk and so hard to do! I know because I've tried. I've even had some fruiting crosses, but it takes so, so long.
First you have to have both types flowering together. Then you have to make a successful cross and then you have to grow lots of seedlings to maturity to see the results. That uses up around fifteen years in my climate. You don't get many chances to start over again!

bussone - the -24C is a well-known error originally in The Citrus Industry, volume 1 and often repeated. Citrus glauca is killed at around -10C.

bussone - you can't cross anything with Buddha's Hand. It doesn't produce seeds.

Citrange

Millet · Posted: Wed 04 Sep, 2013 12:56 am

Trying to find a way to a commercially GOOD tasting hardy citrus that would survive unprotected in zones 4, 5 or 6 is like attempting to find Juan Ponce de León's Fountain of Youth. If such a tree is ever produced, it would probably be a GMO tree, or by a means that is way beyond present day science. I believe it will never be accomplilshed by crossing known present day citrus varieties. - Millet

bussone · Posted: Wed 04 Sep, 2013 1:21 pm

citrange wrote:

I find this talk of trying all these wonderful hybridizations slightly irritating.
Why? Because it's so easy to talk and so hard to do!

bussone - the -24C is a well-known error originally in The Citrus Industry, volume 1 and often repeated. Citrus glauca is killed at around -10C.

bussone - you can't cross anything with Buddha's Hand. It doesn't produce seeds.

Citrange

No one said it was easy. Supposedly Swingle tried a few thousand crossings before he ended up with just seven citranges. But up until then, no one had bothered in the better part of 7 millennia to cross poncirus with citrus. But consider that in just over a decade, we're already seeing austrialian lime crosses -- and we've only known about some of them for a little longer than that!

As to glauca, the interest is less in its cold-hardiness (not bad, but not great), but in its other tolerant properties -- it's salt and drought tolerant, and in doing so, expresses some of the same traits and behaviors that confer cold-tolerance on poncirus. It's also got an unusual fruit form that might pair well w/ poncirus in avoiding its usual problems. Or it might turn out to be a scrubby little bush with fruits like little molotov cocktails -- that would still fit in well with the deathworld that is Australia.

For buddha's hand -- I realize the citrons don't come true, but couldn't you use poncirus as the seed parent? Morton was a cross w/ poncirus as the seed parent, wasn't it? (Rusk being the opposite)

yuzuquat · Posted: Mon 14 Oct, 2013 7:12 pm

The buddhas hand hybrid exists. I think in vienna, will look in my downloads to see if can find. Looked like a small lemon but had nothing to get yrue sense of size.

Citrange has his eremowhat hybrid grown fron seed sent to him from riverside as glauca.

Eremorange and eremolemon are open pollinated seedlings from glauca seed. Pollen parent assumed to be sweet orange and meyers lemon respectively. I have eremorange and hope to cross on. Will get eremolemon when it is available.

Controlled crosses exist with citrange and shekwasha mandarin. Later is definitely intermediate but the citrangeremo i have does not fit description in citrus industry (looks more like pure glauca). Anyway will cross on when they flower.

Should have pure glauca next year.

pagnr · Posted: Wed 16 Oct, 2013 11:43 am

Maybe these will give some ideas ?
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&prev=hp&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://extwww.cc.saga-u.ac.jp/~katayuki/HP-3/HTML/zatsyu.html

citrange · Posted: Wed 16 Oct, 2013 8:13 pm

I have often looked enviously at the photos from the Saga University website and twice requested seeds from them. They refused to send any to private individuals.

GregMartin · Posted: Wed 16 Oct, 2013 8:31 pm

Wow, interesting hybrids. Why won't they ship seeds to individuals? Just seems mean! How many requests do they really get?