Plus quoted an additional four times in this thread:
I am glad to have your experienced input @anon47724557 . No harm in letting the rest of us form individual opinions too though. Many of us aren’t ever gonna be able to grow the most top rated Citrus in terms of flavor fresh and raw, but at least we can experiment with the more hardy forms which may need a bit of processing before eating.
For a person to get so worked up about others growing trifolate hybrids is bizarre to say the least. Like he has a personal anger towards that type of citrus. I actually have a small piece of raw land in zone 9 in Northern California and even though I can grow satsumas, limes and lemons, I still enjoy growing the hardy citrus. I think some of them are pretty good. I grew up surrounded by citrus orchards in the last significant agricultural zone left in Southern California, so I’ve tasted fruit from all sorts of trifolate citrus trees. Some are not great, but some aren’t bad at all. I certainly think some are good enough to justify giving it a go in the Pacific Northwest. I spend a good amount of my time in Oregon and that also drives my interest in growing hardy citrus. I think the sudachi and standard yuzu are legitimately good and worth growing up here. For some reason it bothers that guy people can grow citrus in the Pacific Northwest. He needs to get a new cause. Nobody is interested in hearing his negative opinion for the umpteenth time.
I suppose that I understand a bit where folks in prime Citrus growing areas are coming from. Growing up on a produce farm, I learned what the best watermelons tasted like.
When I encounter watermelons of lower quality, I’m disgusted by the flavors, or lack of good flavor.
I need to allow the persons living in marginal watermelon growing areas to enjoy the fruits of their labor. These were produced under suboptimal conditions, yet I shouldn’t discredit their accomplishments.
I strongly believe there has been progress made in breeding cold hardy Citrus. I also realize much of the progress is incremental and barring the use of GMO methodology won’t occur quickly.
I’ve tasted a number of hardy Citrus fruits and would have no hesitation concerning the use of several of the best in drinks, but I’d have more reluctance eating the same fruit out of hand.
Another example is the fruit of 5* Citrumelo which while only marginally hardy in zone 6b, has predominantly Grapefruit flavors.
The VI 396 (in ghouse, grafted to lime) I got from you putting on a growth spurt. Does it look like the your Prague Citsuma?
None of my Prague grafts have started growing yet, but I suspect it’ll be hard to compare them until they fruit, since they both apparently have variable leaves.
Yes… so far looks all trifoliate!
I ended up getting a Prague Citsuma from Stan. It has put on some impressive growth this summer.
Nice!! Mine is putting on decent growth finally. I hope to trim some small scion end twiggies next march to graft to 5± Trifolate rootstock i have ready for them!
They are a slower grower so far than my other citrus, but are showing signs of progress, and with their hardiness i intend to grow lots of them for my future soviet greenTrench, and a few for family down in Louisiana!
Exciting!
Here are 2 of my 3 Prague, the largest is in the center, I got it from Stan i think 2 years ago? And on the right are some Trifolate rootstock.
Do you grow those outside year round? What does the fruit taste like?
That’s awesome. Are they able to handle your zone outside unprotected.
He said they were for his Soviet style citrus trenches, so that would seem to imply they need protection.
I’m not familiar with that. Is it a subterranean growing method?
It’s been discussed on here a few times, here’s where someone posted a long article about them:
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:
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….
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!
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.
