Comments on: Have Yourself a Very Mandarin Christmas

By: John Wickham

John Wickham — Mon, 26 Dec 2016 02:25:22 +0000

In "The Fruit Hunters" by Adam Gollner, he asked students at the UC Riverside Citus Variety Collection which was their favorite citrus in the collection. There are more than 1,000 varieties in this collection. The student pick was the Kishu mandarin. They are small, seedless, with excellent flavor. I've found that they don't have as much pith as other citrus.

By: Matt Mattus

Matt Mattus — Sat, 24 Dec 2016 18:45:02 +0000

In reply to Unknown. Thank you Jane. Merry Christmas!

By: Matt Mattus

Matt Mattus — Sat, 24 Dec 2016 18:44:33 +0000

In reply to Anonymous. I never knew that Chad, thanks for sharing the info. Always much to learn, but my patience and time lends itself to grafted plants. Now - to look-up apomictic polyembryony!

By: Unknown

Unknown — Sat, 24 Dec 2016 00:39:27 +0000

I can almost smell them! They do conjure up Christmas almost instantly!
Happy christmas!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Dec 2016 00:07:48 +0000

Cultural Note: I think that is only partially true. Many Citrus exhibit apomictic polyembryony. So if you plant one seed per pot, then in a few pots you will get more than one seedling develop. In those pots one of the seedlings will be genetically mixed and highly likely to ‘just be thorny shrubs’. The other seedling will be a genetic copy of the parent tree. It isn’t a high proportion of seeds that do it though, so you have to sow all you have and then watch hopefully for the double shoots.

Of course you have to grow them both on to maturity to be sure have one that will fruit and they are not fast to flower from seed!

Chad

By: hopflower

hopflower — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 08:59:32 +0000

In reply to Matt Mattus. I am afraid that the tangerine part is right, but tangelos were named for being crossed also with pomelo, or grapefruit. I know this because I live in California where we grow many types of citrus, and also because I love all forms of citrus and am allergic to a lot of them. Especially grapefruit. I just cannot have them.

By: Matt Mattus

Matt Mattus — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 04:36:44 +0000

In reply to Linus. My 'Gold Nugget' is 5 feet tall. They are grafted of course, but I think they may grow larger than the catalog states.

By: Matt Mattus

Matt Mattus — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 04:35:44 +0000

In reply to Anonymous. Most of my citrus are from Logee's (I only live 20 minutes away!), but I think that only my 'Meyer' lemons originated from somewhere else (the new dwarf selection from Monrovia Nurseries I believe). I do allow my citrus to dry off between watering a bit, but I think temperature and perhaps day-length triggers bloom. Indoors, it can be more challenging to keep them vernalized with artificial lights and constant temperatures. A good summer outdoors may do the trick. Now that I have the greenhouse, I miss having citrus indoors, but since space is getting scarce, maybe it's time that some migrate back in!

By: Matt Mattus

Matt Mattus — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 04:31:34 +0000

Oh, I do love Temple oranges but my all time fav are the Tangelo's. Names are a funny thing, now that I think about it. Those know as 'Tangor' types of orange have names created by'Tan' for Tangerine, and 'Or' for Orange. 'Tangelo' probably they same clever naming company! Personally, I think Tangelo's have a better flavor than Temples, but their season is so short ( just a few weeks in January). Ugli are terrific as well, but expensive so it's hard to justify $3.00 for one fruit. Its worth nothing that the 'Ugli' fruit name is pronounced as 'Hooo-glee' and not 'Ugly' as many in the say. It's been marketed under the name 'Uniq Fruit'® but few call it that. It's Jamaican where Hooglee ('Ugli') is very popular.

By: tkmatt

tkmatt — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 22:40:33 +0000

My favorite orange growing up was the temple or tangor (C. reticulata × C. sinensis). Easy to peel, great flavor, and juicy, I still didn't quite "get it" when my father put it in my stocking. It has seeds but I think it's superior to the navel orange. Unfortunately, I never see temple oranges in California.