Yup, though I’m curious whether it actually still tastes like a key lime. I’m planning to grow it in a container and overwinter in my greenhouse. So far all my one year-old key lime seedlings seem to have overwintered ok in there, so I’m using a couple of them as rootstocks for this. Here’s the UC description:
Spontaneous autotetraploid selected from seedling population of diploid Key lime in 1973 by HC Barrett, US Horticultural Research Laboratory, Orlando. Fruit are more than twice as large as ordinary diploid key lime but have true key lime flavor and aroma. Suggested as a containerized ornamental by developer.
Tastes like key lime but much larger fruit. Had one is a pot for many years but during a vacation to Seattle it died(dad lived in Seattle from 1944-2018(except for 1965-1973 launching Apollo rockets) and worked at Boeing,. Died from too heavy of soil in my pots. I propagated from budwood. Then Texas added $150 to CCCP orders so one California variety now costs me $250 with shipping. Found a guy with fruit and my seedling just flowered for the first time after 4 years in a pot. Cost me $5 for postage. Had hundreds of seedlings and gave away many to fellow Texans and the result was giant key lime fruit. Can’t grow in ground here near Houston as they are tropical and freeze at 32F.
For a real laugh I ordered more budwood for $250 and none of the 12+ buds took. Red finger lime buds didn’t take either(second variety only $50), hence, seedling giant key limes. The Texas budwood bureau also ordered from CCCP around the same time and didn’t get any buds to take either. Another crazy person in Texas paid $250 for red finger lime buds and I grafted them for him. I kept a couple grafts for myself as my buds took. The buds I grafted for the other guy all died, harumph.
BTW Texans can’t order directly from CCCP so must pay Texas budwood bureau a $150 service fee.
Yes, they send only to Texas Certified Budwood Bureau and then gets forwarded to me if I pay them the $150 service fee plus $50 shipping and $5/bud. Got some buds from Florida one time the same way. Florida won’t sell buds to homeowners as they aren’t allowed to propagate citrus at home. Back in the pre greening days when I was selling budded citrus trees from my back yard I imported many varieties into Texas from CCCP for $40 each variety paid with money made selling 3 year old budded citrus for $25 each. BTW got some of the first shiranui budwood legally in Texas. However a friend grew out one of my shiranui seedlings to maturity. Hah, thorny bugger fruited in 2020 and was frozen to death in 2021 after a 6-7 year wait.
Us Texans are getting citrus shy after citrus killing freezes in 2021 and 2023. Heard lots of “I’ve given up on citrus from friends.” My 20 trees survived 2021 14F protected with mulch and were frozen dead in 2023 16F with no protection.
I’d recommend you try several kinds of grafts. Cleft seems to work sometimes on citrus in the rare event when budding doesn’t.
Sure is. I like that guy’s blogging. He has some very funny takes. Lately I’ve been learning a lot about all these different types of ‘rare’ citrus. Makes me wonder what kind of strange and amazing specimens might be growing in places like northern Croatia or other similar marginal citrus zones. Perhaps in some backyard long ago forgotten by the family after grandpa died in 1985. Maybe he was experimenting in the years before dying and now there’s some really cool citrus specimen thriving and producing excellent fruit but nobody knows about it yet. You never know.
I am wondering if my root stock might have not been awake enough yet, and also the CCPP is willing to send bud wood at any time during a long time period I think it was January through April, I got mine in March, that might have something to do with it as well.
I think that sugar beets grown in the United States, are genetically modified to optimize sugar content. I’m wondering if there would be any interest in gently carrying over specific antifreeze genes from poncirus into some delicious oranges, this could expand the growing region and make somebody a lot of money.
Some people hypothesize that the off taste in trifoliate is a direct result of the “antifreeze” itself, so you can’t get one without the other. But that could be wrong, of course. If the Prague citsuma really does lack the trifoliate flavor, it would imply that cold hardiness of vegetative growth can be achieved without the off flavor in the fruit.
There’s a fairly common concept that Poncirus off flavors are tied to it’s cold hardiness. The first issue is to define the disagreeable Poncirus tastes. There is strong acidity, bitterness, sticky resin, etc.
I’ve tasted fruit of Poncirus Plus, which exhibits the expected Poncirus flavors, but in reduced quantities. To this point, I haven’t seen any reduction in cold hardiness. If the hardiness is fully linked with the off flavors, I would expect to find reduced cold hardiness in Poncirus Plus.
I also have a number of grafted 026 Segentrange trees out of doors, and one seedling in a cold frame. These trees are just short of Poncirus hardiness, but have flavors well suited to make beverages.
My take at point is that there’s likely some linkage between cold hardiness and flavors, but that it may be due to the proximity of gene locations on the chromosomes, rather than the off flavors providing actual protection against the cold.
Have people other than yourself tasted the segentrange? It seems people sometimes have vastly different opinions concerning the palatability of poncirus hybrid fruit.The Morton citrange, for instance, is a variety I’ve heard people describe as tasting good enough to make lemonade, while others have to spit it out immediately upon tasting. I wonder if that kind of striking dichotomy is possible with the seretrange?
I had limited juice available, but 5 persons tasted and commented on the flavors when diluted at 30% juice and 70 water. It also needed to be sweetened.
2 of the persons commented on it’s similarity to grapefruit flavor.
There were no negative comments concerning the juice as prepared. The straight juice had a very tart flavor.
The most favorable comment was “fantastic”.
many people have this idea of using crispr to transfer the genes from poncirus to citrus for cold hardiness
somehow I can’t find anything about trying it.
maybe some try it but keep it secret to be able to patent it.
Or maybe many citrus take a long time to ripen and if you live in colder zones it may not make sense or be of any value to agriculture and therefore not much research has been done into CRISPr - poncirus-citrus-cold-hardness.
if the unpleasant taste has something to do with the hardness of the cold, then that would have been found out, i don’t know, statistics, plant cells inject the substances with it and see if they burst when it’s cold and things like that.
I am afraid that normal crossing poncirus with citrus will lead to a dead end because somehow there is no real progress.
why plants are cold tolerant is usually not easy to find out. if it’s just some chemicals to act as antifreeze, you could plant a gene from other organisms that produces a sugar that doesn’t rupture the cells when it freezes, but most of the time there are more factors involved.
an idea that went through my head, irradiate crosses between poncirus and citrus with radioactive radiation and hope to destroy the genes responsible for the unpleasant taste…
I think the fact that some trifoliate oranges lack the off flavor means it is not linked to the hardiness of the species. The only one I’ve tasted lacked the off flavor (it was just a random old specimen at a botanical garden and not the more recently circulating poncirus + clone).
At least there’s an option. In Georgia, there is no State budwood source whatsoever, and you are banned from bringing in budwood. You have to buy a whole tree to get budwood , lol…
I buy trees, find I don’t like the fruit, then give the tree away afterwards since I can’t sell it!
I may misunderstand the Georgia guidelines seems they are everchanging, but I do not think we are banned from bringing in budwood just banned from bringing in noncertified budwood. Since California is about the only certified budwood program that sells to anyone other than commercial nurseries we would be limited to nurseries here that have certified budwood or Californias program. That is close to being banned.
Still that’s about the max I’d pay for sure!
this could expand the growing region and make somebody a lot of money.