North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[athagan@atlantic.net]

Mark in Seattle,

I'm out in the country not actually in Gainesville itself so our
temperatures vary somewhat from the official readings.  We can
generally expect to hit twenty five at least two or three times a
year and it's not all that uncommon to go to twenty or twenty one. 
After the Christmas ice storm of '89 my porch thermometer said eleven
degrees though that's not what the official reading at the airport
was.  Thankfully, that kind of weather is pretty rare here!

None of my citrus is very remarkable, it's all fairly common.

Ponkan tangerine on Swingle citrumelo
Sunburst tangerine on Swingle citrumelo 
Kimbrough satsuma on trifoliate
An unknown satsuma simply called "New Satsuma" on trifoliate
Ambersweet orange on trifoliate
Page orange on Cleopatra mandarin
Orlando tangelo on trifoliate
Smooth, flat Seville (sour orange) on trifoliate
Meyer lemon, rootstock unknown
Taiwanica lemon, rootstock unknown
Meiwa kumquat on presumptive Thomasville citrangequat (as per B.L.
Childers)

Not cold hardy at all are my two little Key limes that live in a
hoophouse in the winter. I'm also in the process of germinating three
varieties of trifoliate seeds that Mr. Childers kindly gave me for
use as rootstock so I can finally start learning how to bud citrus. 
Been wanting to learn how to do that for years.

Everything is still quite young with some not even having been planted
yet so the two times this winter the Weather Service predicted low
twenties I wrapped and bagged the in ground trees.  Had they been
mature I may not have bothered to try to protect them as they should
all take that sort of cold without too much damage.  I've tried to
choose fruit maturities with the cold in mind so I wouldn't lose all
the fruit to a freeze.  

There are citrus varieties out there that will take even more cold but
they are not generally what I consider to be palatable.

.....Alan.

> From: "Mark Lee" <markl@nytec.com>
> Subject: [NAFEX] cold hardy citrus of new member
> 
> To Alan in Gainesville, Florida.
> Welcome!
> 
> You mentioned that you have 10 varieties of palatable cold hardy
> citrus.  Can you list those for us?  What is the coldest that you 
> expect your trees to experience?  I see from weather records that 
> Gainesville has only a few days each month with minimum temps below

> freezing, but you may be in a "cold" pocket.
> 
> -Mark Lee, Seattle


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