Citrus Growers Forum

Marches · Posted: Mon 02 Sep, 2013 7:30 am

Hello,

I'm from Northern England and wish to grow citrus indoors and investigate the possibility of growing cold hardy citrus outside.

Millet · Posted: Mon 02 Sep, 2013 11:31 am

Welcome, were glad to have you as a member. - Millet

citrange · Posted: Tue 03 Sep, 2013 5:36 pm

Welcome 'Marches',
I live in Buckinghamshire and have a large greenhouse citrus collection and a few outdoor plants.
Happy to give advice.
Whereabouts up North are you?
Citrange
www.homecitrusgrowers.co.uk

Marches · Posted: Tue 03 Sep, 2013 6:37 pm

citrange wrote:

Welcome 'Marches',
I live in Buckinghamshire and have a large greenhouse citrus collection and a few outdoor plants.
Happy to give advice.
Whereabouts up North are you?
Citrange
www.homecitrusgrowers.co.uk

I live in Cheshire. I'm interested in growing some citrus in a south facing window in a very warm and bright room, probably Satsumas or Mandarins.
I'm also interested in cold hardy citrus and hybrids like Yuzus, Poncirus and Citranges.
I don't currently have any citrus plants but plan on getting some, I'm here to research the hardier citrus before I commit to anything.

I currently breed grapes and want to eventually try to do the same with citrus perhaps.
BTW citrange, your username pops up in about every other discussion regarding Poncirus that I've seen on the web. Very Happy

Cheers

citrange · Posted: Tue 03 Sep, 2013 7:27 pm

Quote:

BTW citrange, your username pops up in about every other discussion regarding Poncirus that I've seen on the web.

That's because I've been around for a long time!
When I first started growing citrus, I soon found I needed to get some Poncirus seedlings as rootstocks. But this was before the web and Google, and I simply couldn't obtain any viable seeds. So I started hunting for mature Poncirus plants which I gradually located - mainly in botanic gardens and stately homes in the UK.
Then, when the internet started, I thought I'd save anyone else the effort and started listing these plants on my website.
I haven't found any in Cheshire!

Marches · Posted: Tue 03 Sep, 2013 8:58 pm

citrange wrote:

Quote:

BTW citrange, your username pops up in about every other discussion regarding Poncirus that I've seen on the web.

That's because I've been around for a long time!
When I first started growing citrus, I soon found I needed to get some Poncirus seedlings as rootstocks. But this was before the web and Google, and I simply couldn't obtain any viable seeds. So I started hunting for mature Poncirus plants which I gradually located - mainly in botanic gardens and stately homes in the UK.
Then, when the internet started, I thought I'd save anyone else the effort and started listing these plants on my website.
I haven't found any in Cheshire!

Such a shame Poncirus isn't more common in the UK, I'am yet to see one. If there were more of them then we could evaluate different ones and would possibly find some good material for breeding. I think it's very likely that there'll be some interesting strains of it in its native range - perhaps some lacking the oils and bitter taste and others lower in acidity.

With grape species for example, there is a species called Vitis riparia in America. On its own it is pretty bad as a grape - small, extremely bitter grapes with small size being dominant. Such negative traits breed out in hybrids with other species - eventually, but there are some interesting mutations that have been found of it -

*A white mutation - its berries are usually black
*A very interesting mutation that responds to daylight instead of temperature - it goes dormant by September 1st no matter what. Probably as a result of its mountainous home that can go cold very quickly.
*Wild strains in Quebec with a neutral, non-acidic flavour.

Such strains can be found because it's common there and grows from seed. With so little Poncirus material in the UK though, it is highly unlikely we'd find anything like that.
With grapes, some breeders play at luck and just scatter lots of seeds in a field and see what the results are like. If one could get Poncirus seeds from a variety of sources and had the space and patients to do so, I suppose something similar could be done here.
Really though, any good strains will likely exist in China, but they're a bit protective of their plant material now.

yuzuquat · Posted: Sat 19 Oct, 2013 12:15 pm

Hi to all members from England and all others in better citrus growing climates.

I am just outside of Manchester and have been interested in cold tolerant citrus for many years.

The problem in UK, and much of Europe, has been finding plants for sale.

Have grown citranges and US119 from cuttings but found although they survive our normal winters they then fail to put on growth. A hard winter then takes them out.

C32 from riverside seed grew well for 6years but was taken out by 2 exceptionally consecutive cold winters of 2009-10 and 2010-11.

Have purchased plants mostly grafted on poncirus from citrus bali and adavo this year to try out.

Have:-
Poncirus and its form flying dragon (hope to have fast floweting from sylvian soon). And named variety rubidoux.

Primary hybrids from poncirus:-
Citrange rusk
Citrange possibly de mantauban
Citrumelo dunstan
Citrumelo batumi
Citrumelo swingle (cpb4485)
Pt x newzealand grapefruit

Citrandarins
Trifeola
Cisuma
Hrs889a and j
X639

Citremon eisenhut 138
Citradia eisenhut 168

F2 from poncirus

Citrangequats sinton and thomasville
Troyer citrange x clementine
Curafora
Venesca
Others:-
Citrus ichangensis
Ichang lemon
Ichangensis x otiete orange
Microcitrus villa hanbury form
Microcitrus australis
Microcitrus wintersii
Eremocitrus x shekwasha
Eremorange
Citrangeremo
Changsha mandarin
Ichang lemon 'sabastien

Uk is supposedly zone8 but then so is all maritime europe including citrus growing areas in spain, portugal, greece and italy.

Winters here generally get frosty about christmas time and last to mid april. Low typically -5centigrade. Such temps can last several days.

Summers will peak about 20centigrade exceptional years will be 25 or higher, 18 as low.

Look forward to hearing from you in response to this or other posts already added'