North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["jamie" <jamie@tiscali.fr>]

Hello Philip, I'm at the planning stage of a home orchard and would like to
plant some citrus from seed and I'm also in a zone 8b/9a area. What I'd like
to know is how you germinate your seeds or whether you just plant the seed
directly in its permanent location. I'm also interested in knowing how well
the citrus come back from those occasional years where the tree is killed to
the roots (I think about 20 years ago there was a frost down to 10F) and if
there is some simple protection that can be taken (wrapping in fleece for
example) and how effective it is.

Jamie
Souscayrous

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-admin@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-admin@lists.ibiblio.org]On
Behalf Of philip sauber
Sent: vendredi 7 février 2003 23:16
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Potted citrus

I'd like to know where there is low humidity in Texas where citrus will
grow?  It is like a steam bath here near Houston all summer!  Citrus from
California definately has thicker skin than from Florida or Texas.  It also
has to do with variety.  White grapefruit has thicker skin than pink or red.

I grow citrus from seed as well as grafting onto seed grown rootstock.  The
price certainly is right (free) in comparison to a grafted tree for $25-$30.
I mostly give away the seedling trees.  They tend to be tall, thorny, and
take a few to many more years to bear.  Most come true from seed, most
mandarins except clementine.  Satsuma certainly does.  I've had them fruit
in 1-3 years grown outside in the ground.  An advantage of seedlings is that
they come true from the roots after being frozen out.  I have a nice
seedling sour orange I grow for marmalaide that grew to 15 feet high in 3
years.  As I was budding bearing sour orange budwood on three branches to
get fruit faster, I noticed that the fourth branch was blooming!  The
seedling part is quite thorny with thorns as long as 2 inches.  I got
budwood from the top of a bearing tree and it has grown branches that are
thornless.

A friend has a mature seedling kumquat in the ground that has thorns as big
as a 12 penny nail on the trunk and at the top is thornless!

I live in a place that has had zone 9b weather since 1989 (low of 25-30F).
However, in Christmas of that year, we had a zone 7b day(10F) that killed
all unprotected citrus.  We are on the line between 8b/9a.  Every 5 years or
so we get 18-20F for a few hours.
--

On Fri, 7 Feb 2003 11:05:54
 miekal and wrote:
>This is what I was thinking since these fruit were set outdoors, but
>they have been ripening indoors in a quite dry house since Oct 1.  But
>I guess there are a lot of variables to consider.
>
>mIEKAL
>
>
>On Friday, February 7, 2003, at 10:56 AM, Richard O'Barr wrote:
>>
>>      My observation of citrus from TX where the humidity is low seem
>> to run
>> with thicker skins than those from FL with a higher humidity. Just a
>> thought
>> there.
>>                                                      TG
>
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