North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Hal Love" <lovehd@comcast.net>]

Do the fruits of Trifoliate orange need to fully ripen to get viable seed?
We just purchased a small farm and I have been hiking around the property to
see what I can find. I was surprised to find two moderate sized Poncirus
this weekend with many seedlings of various sizes scattered over the
hillside. I am in zone 6b, so these are obviously producing viable seed
here. I also found a large thicket of naturalized trifoliate orange on my
neighbors property. From the size of these, they are probably quite old, but
have only spread over a 30 x 100 foot area, so they are not going to take
over any time soon. However, this thicket is absolutely impenetrable, so in
time, this may become a major problem.

It will be interesting to see if there is any variation among the seedlings.
Even if they turn out to be really nasty tasting, at least I have lots of
available rootstock now.

Hal
zone 6 TN