Hi. I didn't find such a topic about citrus varieties that don't come true from seed. And I thought it would be useful for some of us, who are interested in making new citrus crosses.

So, which varieties could we use as motherplants? (I mean: pollinate their flowers with another citrus pollen, plant the seeds and get our new hybrids):
- all true pummelos (Citrus maxima)
- true citrons (C. medica)
- kumquats (without the Fukushu kumquat)
- Meyer and Ponderosa lemons (and some true lemons too - which ones? )
- Clementines and mandarin crosses such like Ugli

- and there are, I suppose, many others!

If you could, please add some more species/varieties that you know don't come true from seed. Also, correct me if I wrote something not true.

Thanks!
Marcin

PS. Maybe someone knows. Does faustrime come true from seed? I've got a plant so I thought of using it as a mother for some new crosses.. maybe with a trifoliate orange, or Diamante citron?

From my experience Faustrime does come true & only takes two years from seed to fruit.

Thanks for the answer, Laaz. So it can't be a mother, but still can be a father for hybrids. And probably they would reach their maturity faster than most of citrus seedlings.

I asked a similar question some time ago. I can't find that thread but I made sure to save the list to a text file. Here it is:

Monoembryonic Citrus List

Pomelo
Citron
Kumquat (especially Japonica, Changshou)
Clementine
King Mandarin
Temple Tangor
Ponderosa Lemon
Meyer Lemon
Citrus Ichangensis (Ichang Papeda)
Hassaku
Ortanique
Ugli
Citrus halimii (Papeda relative)
Yuzu

Also some good information here:

http://users.kymp.net/citruspages/classification.html#true

Lemandarangequatelo most Tangelos do come true from seed. - Millet

My apologies, I must have copied the list out incorrectly. I'll amend my post, thanks for the correction.

Thanks Lemandarangequatelo and Millet for the info. And the linked site is very interesting!
Okay, so there's a quite long list of citrus species and varieties producing zygotic seeds. If someone knows about a variety not listed here, please add it.

Also, Yuzu is monoembryonic, but the seeds come true to type...one of the few exceptions to the monoembryonic seeds = not true to type

As do sudachi

It's good to know, and it proves that monoembryonic seed doesn't mean zygotic seed.

Citrandarin US-852 apparently sends off a large number of off-type seedlings.

I think this is a distinction that is often omitted in conversations about non-'true-to-type' varieties.

Some varieties like the Citrandarin produce BOTH off-type and true-to-type seedings as a percentage.

The bulletin on US-852 says that: 'only about half of the seedlings recovered are of nucellar (apomictic) origin and have a uniform morphology typical of US-852.'

This is one reason why this variety was discontinued as a rootstock. It was just inefficient to grow these from seed and have an assurance of a large number of clones.

'...