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  • From: list@ginda.us
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Quest(s) for edible trifoliate orange.
  • Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 22:26:22 -0400

That's very interesting. Lots of people have written about how you can't even use trifoliate in a hybrid because the flavor is so terrible. It sounds like this might be a good source for breeding stock for an edible hybrid between trifoliate and something that tastes good. It might not be as good as what you can grow in the south, but as you say. . .

My meyers lemon produced really tasty fruits this year, despite never getting really hot weather. It actually ripened them in the house over the winter. Maybe also good breeding stock?

Ginda

On Sunday, May 11, 2003, at 09:19 PM, Moyer, Richard wrote:

Jim Nottke wrote:
Keith,
Please let me know if you find a source of Satsuma budwood - I'd like to
try them high on a few of the 1100 trifoliate orange that I have here near
Winston-Salem, NC. My oldest tree is about 60 years old and 25 feet tall.
Jim.

Phil Sauber wrote:
Trifoliate orange fruit is definitely inedible and one would be dreaming to
think you could make marmalade with it, it is so full of seeds there isn't a
teaspoon of pulp per fruit!

My response:
Here in Zone 6 East Tenn, beggars can't be choosers for citrus. Hence am
growing trifoliate from edge of Augusta National Golf Course, former site of
Fruitland Nursery, founded by Berkman family about 1840. Around 1845,
Berkman imported chinese trifoliate, according to M. Dirr, Manual of Woody
Landscape Plants. I presume the plants still there are seedlings of the
original. As for taste, my kids eat them and ask for more, though they do
enjoy sour items.

Many (most?) trifoliate are extremely bitter, easily inducing nausea. Flesh
from Augusta source is not, though other's I've tried had me on the verge of
vomiting. Augusta fruit still about the size of a golf ball to larger,
seedy, gummy, but still with recognizable citrus flavor. (Folks in Zone 9,
I sense your laughter, derision and pity.)

Adam and Sue Turtle and Hidden Springs are two locations I know of testing
for edible types and coldhardiness.
Jim Nottke, fascinated in what you've observed with 1100?? trifoliate near
Winston-Salem over the years.

As for size, Ethan N. noted a source in Houston of much larger trifoliate
fruit, at least the size of tennis ball, if I recall correctly.

Phil, as for processing the fruit for marmalade, gumminess seems to be the
problem over size and seediness. Donna Hudson and Lon Rombough have
commented on the gumminess problem in a thread several years ago.

Though March freeze wiped out our early trifoliate blooms, we still have a
few dozen fruit from later blooms on two trees, with several more too young
to bloom. These trees are hardy above ground well below zero without
protection; Hector Black noted bloom and fruit after -17 F. Our bigger
problem is late March/April freezes. Jim, do you have any with higher
chill?

Would enjoy any and all input on edible trifoliate production in Zone 6-7.
Thanks,
Richard Moyer
Zone 6, East Tenn, 1800'
Strawberry season!

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