Growing citrus outside the citrus belt

You appear to have more of the skinny than I, but I have a ‘Centennial’ variegated kumquat. Ive read that in this case, the variegation is due to it being a chimera, with white and green tissues representing different genotypes.

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Variegated plants are often, but not always, chimeras. The white margins on your kumquat suggest it’s a periclinal chimera, but it’s tough to say just by looking at it. Here’s a link with a good explanation of the different times of chimeras and how that relates to variegation: https://propg.ifas.ufl.edu/03-genetic-selection/04-genetic-chimera.html

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Most decidedly a calamondin (aka Calamansi, Philippine lime, Citrus mitis, etc.). Technically it is a mandarinquat. I have found them to have variable hardiness. Some of mine freeze back badly around 20 F, others have taken lower teens with little damage. For a polyembryonic hybrid, it is hard to understand how differing genetics could exist to result in such variations in hardiness. There must be some minor genetic mutations effecting hardiness that have resulted from these plants being grown in such a wide global distribution. Dead-ripe I find these quite edible out of hand, less that dead-ripe I make them into wonderful “lime” pies. Everblooming nature of calamondin is a bonus. Of the roughly 110 named Citrus varieties I grow, calamondin is the only one I have ever purposely given as a “gift” to my wife for our patio (for the heavenly scent of the flowers). :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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I don’t think any polyembryonic citrus are 100% nucellar, so some percentage of seedlings will be zygotic with varying traits. I haven’t searched deeply, but found a research paper that said 7% zygotic for calamondin:

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This is really fascinating!!!
Since the authors of this paper weren’t so stupid may I suggest the word “zygoticity”?

I’m sure I’m not the only one without a Phd in botany here. Doesn’t zygotic have something to do with whether it will be true to seed?
Thanks,
JOhn S
PDX OR

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Yes, zygotic seedlings are the product of pollination, i.e., they combine the seed parent’s DNA with the pollen parent’s DNA. The non-zygotic seedlings are “nucellar,” derived only from the seed parent’s DNA, and generally are a clone of the seed parent, unless a random mutation has occurred.

I should add that many of the ways people try to distinguish nucellar embryos/seedlings from zygotic ones are likely imperfect, and I’m not familiar with the accuracy of the method used by the researchers in that study.

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My yuzu seedling (which I guess has a 1 in 5 chance of being zygotic), starting to bud out in the last week or so despite one mild frost last week and most nights being in the upper 30s to low 40s recently:

I’m pretty impressed with how well it took that January freeze without protection.

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Finally! What I now feel comfortable calling “almost definite success” with grafting Prague:

The own-root (cutting-grown) sudachi that I planted out this spring is starting to put on some new growth. It has very red new leaves:

The one flower I had on my one year-old VI-396 graft is developing into a fruit:

I wouldn’t say this fruit looks that much like a mandarin, though, it is fuzzy and looks more trifoliate-like to me. I wonder about the accuracy of the claim that this is a trifoliate/mandarin chimera. I’m still looking forward to seeing what it looks like ripe, though.

My yuzu seedling is starting a second flush after the first one was ravaged by leafhoppers and maybe also some aphids:

And a few of my container citrus are holding first fruits. A one year-old graft of kishu:

Ditto for an unknown cultivar of lime that a friend gave us last year when she moved away:

That one turned real pale in the greenhouse over the winter, but still set a lot of fruit this spring, and the new growth looks healthier (though it’s not growing much).

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The fruit has continued sizing up:

The kishu as well:

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Kishu almost ripe

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Looking good there bro… I have a bumper crop on all of my trees this year. Most of the satsumas are changing color and should be ready by the end of the month! Kishu is a good one!

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So does this mean it has some cold hardiness? I liked the idea of them, but didn’t think they could take freezing temps. Does anyone here have any more experience with Palestinian sweet lime cold hardiness?

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Limes are usually the least cold tolerant citrus.

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Yeah, I recently brought in my Persian lime so that maybe it would ripen the fruit it’s holding. Into my house that is, since the greenhouse is also a bit too cold for the lime. It has turned very yellow since the cool nights started a few weeks ago, and it hardly grew this summer after flowering in spring. It’s holding 15 to 20 fruit now:

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I bought it from four winds growers who said it is for zones 8 through 11 but protect below 30 F

We keep it outside and put our citrus in a dome before first frost and when it gets below freezing we pit storm lanterns inside the dome to keep it warmer than the outside temperature.

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I believe I got the Palestinian sweet lime in 2022 and then in June of 2023 I added a rangpur lime.

Both are very small still, but they have a thicker trunk now and both have tried to make fruit, but they usually fall off when they’re little but they really are small trees.

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What are you doing to protect them from hard frost? I had a lemon tree under a Agribon 50 cover with a 250W lamp, but for one night last winter at 18F, that was not enough: all the leaves froze. Came out again without major damage to the wood, but no flowers.

Ok, so no confirmed unprotected cold hardiness, but it sounds like they’re growing for you. This year I (hopefully) planted an Excalibur Red lime. Its grown pretty well so far but I’m not planning on protecting it so we’ll see how it handles the cold. Last night it already got down to 35°f.

I’ve got a Persian Lime in ground in Atlanta (8A). It’s probably four years old, but it has been in the ground for the last two. It made it through 11 degrees last winter with protection. The trunk split slightly but it healed over this season and grew really well. It’s my least hardy citrus plant in ground, and I wasn’t really expected it to make it, but we rarely get below 11 degrees so I might be able to get away with it.

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