Best citrus varieties for coastal CA?

General Fruit Growing
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I’m in an area that gets about 2-3 weeks total of frost scattered between December and March and about 2-3 weeks total of high 90s weather in June/July. I have planted a lot of citrus in the last 3 years and some are doing well while others are not very giving me very good fruit and I’d like to try some grafting on those. What are some good temperate area citrus varieties?

Here’s what I have that is doing well:
Bearrs Lime, New Zealand Lemonade, Makrut Lime, Pink Variegated Lemon, Eureka Lemon, Improved Meyers Lemon, Buddhas Hand, Cara Cara Orange, Kumquat, California Honey Mandarin, Australian Finger Lime, Oroblanco Grapefruit

Still waiting to see if it improves: Trovita Orange (only starting Year 3 and I get fruit that is flavorful but not sweet so far, also cracks)

Here’s what I’d like to graft onto:
Washington Navel (flowers abundantly but does not fruit),
Valencia (very strong tree, flowers abundantly but does not fruit),
Moro Blood (but I don’t think its a Moro, maybe a Taracco. It does not have any red streaks and is lacking in flavor and sugar)

I’m am thinking of trying to graft a Moro, Tarraco, and Sanguinelli onto what was supposed to be a Moro, but I don’t know how these varieties do my temperate climate.

For the Washington Navel and Valencia, I am considering some mandarins. Here’s what I’ve looked at so far - Paige, Pixie, Seedless Kishu, Owari (but not available until May 2021), or Yuzu Lime (also not available until May 2021), Bergamot. Are these good options? What else should I consider? I will be ordered grafts from CCPP Budwood Online so I’m limited to those options at this time.

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I’m in a climate similar to yours, USDA zone 10a, Sunset zone 17. I have a Moro orange that I’ve been growing in a container for almost 10 years, and it does well here. Kaffir lime is another one that has done extremely well for me. Other than that, I don’t have much to add, either because what I have is already on your list, or is so newly planted that I can’t comment on whether it does well.

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Pixie is sweet with mild mandarin flavor. My kids love it, but I think it needs a good amount of summer heat to bring out the sweetness. Another option that ripens at the same time as pixie is the gold nugget. It has a stronger mandarin flavor, but I think it does better in coastal environments.

I’m generally not a fan of blood oranges, so my limited experience in growing them is a disclaimer. But I get the feeling that they do better in high heat environments.

Kishu is probably my all time favorite mandarin and it’s highly adaptable. Strong mandarin flavor with equally strong sweetness. I find it to be a slow grower, so I’d recommend getting a large tree rather than a small one.

Page is delicious but very seedy. Up to you whether you want seeds or not.

Tango does pretty well in coastal environments, ripens around February-April. It’s pretty much the seedless version of “Cuties” without needing netting/isolation.

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Thank you! I guess I’ll take Pixie out of the list and put the bloods on a hold. The one I have never develops color or sweetness.

I dont think CCPP Budwood Online offers Gold nugget as budwood so that I’d have to replace a tree to get that in.

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The blood oranges at my farmers markets are never really sweet. I think in general they are more tart than sweet compared to other oranges. Maybe not as severe as limes or lemons. They make cool looking drinks though.

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Fruitmentor (from youtube) had recommended Boukhobza Maltaise blood orange. He lives in the coastal Bay Area as well, so I’d check it out

I heard good reviews about Tardivo di Ciaculli from a CRFG gardener. With less heat, you should be able to crop good late mandarins than Central Valley or even San Jose, where I live.

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@Martin , here in Orangevale we have a perfect climate for growing citrus. Blood oranges here are fantastic! Moro is the darkest colored, and has an intense fruit punch flavor, it is hard to beat in the citrus world. The other I am growing, Tarraco Bream, is very good, with a slightly sweeter flavor. But in a coastal environment they are probably not that great. As you mentioned Kishu mandarin, probably heard more good things about that mandarin grown in a coastal environment than any. As you say Gold Nugget should be great there as well, as it is here. @californicus , Boukhobza definitely looks like the best blood orange for a coastal climate.

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I love citrus and I am in in Sunset zone 22, down in SoCal. The many choices at the CCPP can be overwhelming.

I am a huge fan of blood oranges, and I think I have sampled every one of the blood orange varieties available to order from the CCPP. Out of blood oranges, my favorite is Bream Taracco. My daughter’s favorite is Boukobza. I like tangy flavored citrus, not just mild and sweet.

Blood oranges don’t usually color up really well here near the coast. I buy them instead at farmers markets. However, they are usually a bit more tart than sweet. Blood oranges need some summer heat and a temperature swing with cold in the winter to color up nicely.

When Dan (from Fruitmentor) would send me a citrus sampling box, the fruit was always grown at Lindcove in Exeter. Boukobza he rated as the best may have been from there, not necessarily at his old place in Morgan Hill, closer to the coast. NorCal CRFG chapters could go to annual Citrus day at Lindcove and get to try everything that was ripe at the time, but not all the varieties from there are available to the general public at this time through the ccpp.

Checking my notes, my favorite citrus out of the 60+ varieties I tasted are:
Smith Red
Cara Cara
Gold Nugget
Daisy SL
Kinnow LS
Valentine Pummelo
Bream Tarocco Blood orange
Frost Owari Satsuma
Bearss Lime
Honey Mandarin
Duncan

I also really like Murcott and Tango Mandarins, the TDE mandarins, Cocktail Hybrid pummelo, Okitsu Wase and Xie Shan satsumas. I guess I like pretty much any tangy + sweet citrus.

In my opinion, locally, the best quality citrus seems to be on satsumas, mandarins, lemons, and limes. The other things vary in quality each year depending on heat and chill. I grow Gold Nugget, Tango, Santa Teresa Femenello lemon, Impr. Meyer, Bearss Lime, Cara Cara, Seville Sour orange, and Owari Satsuma. I have grafted Smith Red and Xie Shan at a friends houses, but no fruit yet to report on how they taste, grown close to the coast. I’ll report back if they fruit before the HLB infects them. There are infected trees within 2 miles of us. Some years Cara Cara is excellent here, other years just fair.

One neighbor used to have what I think was a Moro that came with her house and it was decent most years, however it was in a colder microclimate spot on north side of her house, with a lot of winter shade. Sadly, it got removed during a remodel.

If it was me, I would wait to order budwood for the May cutting to get what I wanted or replace a whole tree with one of the varieties not yet released to the general public as budwood, but available from a retail source.

Best wishes with your grafting.

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The rootstock of your undesirable citrus trees may be at fault.

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How do I figure this out? All of my trees are from Four Winds Growers and I’m assuming they use the same rootstock for their California citrus.

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There’s only a handful of citrus rootstocks that are used in California. Most of them perform similarly for the home grower especially when planting in the ground. Even when they’re labeled ‘dwarfing’, ‘semi-dwarfing’, or ‘standard’, they might all be using the same rootstock but pruned/trained differently when the tree was young. This is a good article on it.

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Four winds uses C35.

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So if all of my citrus are on c35 and most are doing well but some are not, I think it would be safe to say it’s not the rootstock. I’m thinking some of my varieties are just not suited to my temperate climate. At least I hope that is the case because I’m planning on grafting new varieties now onto the same rootstock.

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Would you happen to know if the Kinnow would do well in a coastal climate?

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Thank you so much for that great list!

The Kinnows you had - were they coastal grown? Do you think that’s a good coastal mandarin?

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Greg Alder is an excellent source, and an Avocado legend. Good read!

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No, it was not likely from a coastal area. The Kinnow LS came in one of the boxes of citrus Dan Willey sent, so it probably came from Lindcove.

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Sometime a citrus tree refuses to grow. If you are going to graft do it below the original graft to start a new tree.

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I’d like to get seeds of the Mandarinquat, but they rarely show up in the market.

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I am in Hollister, which I think has a climate similar to yours, Although most of my plantings
Have been stone fruits, I have 4 citrus trees planted by the previous owner maybe 30 tears ago; Meyer Lemon, Clemantine Mandarin, Navel Orange and Grapefruit. I had been given no information as to the varieties but ultimately figured them out. The Navel Orange was a bit of a puzzle because most Navels are winter ripening, but this one didn’t start getting sweet until May. It did get progressively sweeter during the summer, leading me to conclude it must be Lane Late Navel. It is quite large now and has become our favorite tree, from which we can pick oranges daily into October and sometimes even November. Of course it is just the wife and I, a larger family might need two or more trees. I would certainly recommend it to you.

The grapefruit is apparently Oro Blanco grapefruit that we had initially misidentified as a Pummelo because many of the fruits were pear shaped like the Asian variety. It turned out to be Oro Blanco, a PummeloxGrapefruit hybrid. It also has the thick skin of the pumelo.that has protected the fruit during rare freezes that would damage other citrus… I never cared much for grapefruit, especially since they don’t sweeten up in this climate. This hybrid does so quite nicely though and prefer to juice them. Others do as with pumelos; peel and section them like an orange. This is now quite a large tree and I plan on grafting other citrus varieties to it.

I have also planted a Bearss lime that took 5 years to bear fruit, and a Dwarf Cara Cara Navel orange that flowers but produced only 3 fruit in 10 years. I don’t know if it is because of the variety compatibility or something to do with the dwarfing root stock.

I would like to graft a winter ripening Navel to the Oro Blanco and would try Cara Cara if the climate compatibility issue can be resolved. (I would of course get scions through CCPP)

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