My Thomasville has 2 fruit on it!
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Do you grow those outside year round? What does the fruit taste like?
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That’s awesome. Are they able to handle your zone outside unprotected.
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He said they were for his Soviet style citrus trenches, so that would seem to imply they need protection.
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I’m not familiar with that. Is it a subterranean growing method?
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It’s been discussed on here a few times, here’s where someone posted a long article about them:
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I am still bringing all of my citrus into our old glass porch, along with the potted figs, etc.
My understanding is that both Prague and Thomasville should be hardy to 5F or 0F or so, depending on the conditions and how dornant they are at that time. So these should be mostly hardy to 7b or 8a.
I plan to build a greenhouse, in the next few years for my more delicate stuff, and for these more hardy trees I plan to make a simple trench like the Soviets did back in the day, so that the earth keeps them warm, and cover it in winter:
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If you are going to be doing all that digging, anyway, perhaps you’ve looked into geothermal heating for your greenhouse.
There’s an old dude, like over 90, who has been growing citrus in Nebraska for around half a century. He uses a geothermal heating set up, bringing mild air from 50 feet below the surface. If I recall correctly, I believe the floor of the greenhouse is also set in a trench with a glass ceiling.
There’s a video of his operation on YouTube. It was made years ago so who knows if he’s still around. If he is you might be keen on heading over there for a tour. During the video he came across as quite amenable to visitors.
I was living in New Mexico at the time I first saw the video, and that system he had established seemed ideal for the area where I was living around Santa Fe. Perhaps he was familiar with Soviet citrus cultivation culture too.
Obviously that central region of the United States is a continental climate, and so much colder than we are on the Pacific coast in the 40’s latitudes with the maritime influence. Though typically the central part of the country is also much sunnier than areas of the Pacific coast north of the Bay Area, making greenhouse culture much more efficient.
Does your part of Kansas get lots of sunny breaks during the colder months? The two places where I maintain trees have about 4 months where the sun shines infrequently to say the least. From November to March you are lucky to get 30 fully sunny days. The trade off is that March to October it’s full sun 90% of the days. Of course that itself has a downside as the need for irrigation is made profound by tha lack of regular rainfall, especially in low water years. Everything is a trade off.
So, do you practice that close to the ground pruning method for your citrus trees? I was doing a bit of reading about the Soviet citrus industry and apparently the trees were pruned to spread out like a spiders close to the ground.
Regardless of what they had to do it was impressive as all hell that they became fully capable of providing their empire with all the citrus it needed without any imports. That surprised me somewhat because Cuba was a part of their economic alliance from the 1950’s until the fall and Cuba is of course an excellent citrus growing island.
Last questions I have are about your Thomasville. How long have you been growing them? Grafted or clones? I don’t know if I’ve asked you before, but are you keen on selling and or trading specimens? I’ve got lots of different genetics here of citrus, pomegranates, kiwis and figs so if you are let me know. I’d be very pleased to get a few cuttings of the Thomasville to try rooting. So far any cuttings I’ve tried rooted that posses any amount of trifoliata lineage take with ease. I use peat, sand and perlite under a table in my greenhouse with temps above 90. In winter I move the rooting operation onto a heating mat. I figure the Thomasville would root fairly easily. Let me know. Not a biggie if you can’t or aren’t into it. Just thought I’d ask.
Cheers….
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Yeah I am interested in copying some of the things the guy in Nebraska has done, those videos are amazing!!!
Yeah i am here in south central kansas, we get lots of sun year around. And yeah, in a summer drought that sun can bake us, 2022 was a killer drought and killed some of my trees, a lot of my young peaches that i had grew out, grafted, and just planted out most of them didnt survive that summer of dry heat in spite of my watering, but i came through better than it could have been, most of my established trees did ok.
So yes we get good winter sun and warmups. We get a blizzard week, then a warmup week, so lots of summer warmth to work with if i can design the right underground setup!!
And yes i want to incorporate some of those pruning techniques too! I still have a lot to learn, and a lot of planning before getting to the build stage, but yeah those are great thoughts! If they can do it in Russia, I have confidence that great things can be done!!
My Thomasville is grafted to a Trifilate rootstock. I also grafted a limb of Thomasville onto my Kumquat.
And yes, i am always open to trades for sure.
The past two grafting seasons I didnt do much because our drought was damaging everything so bad. But yeah i am always interested in planning trades and trying new things as time and weather allows!
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That’s all fantastic. I love what you’re doing. Very inspirational for all of us who keep pushing the limits of what’s possible. I love reading about people taking the initiative and not letting conventional wisdom limit what they’ll try. I’ll go ahead and send you a direct message so we can discuss potential inventory exchange.
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Thank you…
I am ordering today
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I put my ‘Changsha’ mandarin to the test this winter. I left it out and unprotected. The lowest we hit here was 12F, but only briefly. The lowest sustained temperature was more like 14F, at least according to the closest weather station. It’s been thawed back out for a few days now, and I don’t see any super obvious signs of damage yet.
On a side note, I wish I could get a hold of the “precocious trifoliate”, but where does one get this?
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Funny enough, this year’s fairly mild winter has killed my Changsha dead. For whatever reason, it failed to establish itself and lagged all my other plants for growth, and kept having issues with chlorosis. First hard freeze in the mid twenties knocked it back severely, and by the New Year all the leaves had fallen and the stem was mostly dull brown. After the recent cold spell into the upper teens, it’s pretty toast.
I might try again with it, but honestly probably won’t, my satsumas established themselves far better and have taken almost no damage (they did get more protection, but still…). And given it’s a parent of a number of trifoliate crosses, I’m not sure I’ve much use for it for breeding either.
I’m curious about what was going on with the roots of your ‘Changsha’ if you feel like digging it up and taking a look. Do you know what rootstock it was on?
It was on trifoliate or a trifoliate hybrid. I’ll wait until spring to see if anything still alive or if the rootstock is also dead and if so I’ll dig it up.
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We have a Kumquat that we have given up on twice. But, last year it began new growth in June.
How old/big was your changsha?
Oh nice, I just got my changsha from one green world. I was surprised at how small and expensive it was. Are you keeping it in a pot fulltime outside?