North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["philip sauber" <mrxtexas@lycos.com>]

I have tasted a seedling thomasville and a thomasville selection.  The 
seedling was horrible and couldn't be sweetened with any amount of sugar.  It 
tasted like sulfuric acid.  The selection was barely edible.  I grafted my 
seedling with the selection last year but will graft something edible this 
year to it like satsuma.  I'd call it famine food.  If that was the last food 
on earth, you'd probably eat it.  The average person wouldn' take a second 
bite and might spit out the first one if no one was looking.  I've tasted 
many cold hardy citrus fruit and they were uniformly horrible.  Citrus nuts 
in Houston, TX grow them.  Ichang lemon is sour with next to no lemon flavor. 
 Here they aren't that cold hardy either.  The problem with trifoliate citrus 
hybrids is that the hybrid vigor of the cross make them vigorous growers 
which is not what you want for cold hardiness.  For cold hardiness, you want 
no sap flowing in the winter.  The bad taste of the trifoliate disappears far 
slower than the cold hardiness appears.  I have grown thomasville and swingle 
citrumelo for rootstock and can testify that they are more vigorous growers 
than trifoliate.


_____________________________________________________________
Get 25MB, POP3, Spam Filtering with LYCOS MAIL PLUS for $19.95/year.
http://login.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus&ref=lmtplus