Did you plant the sudachi outside? I’ve got a decent crop of sudachi this fall on an outside tree. Have you ever tried them? They are phenomenal. I would grow them even if I was living in the true citrus belt. One of the best sour citrus I’ve ever had: floral and mildly sweet.
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Thats a new one for me. There seem to be some interesting little known Japanese citrus. Ujukitsu is one Ive always wanted to try growing.
Among the various citrus clan, Im probably most excited about kumquats and their hybrids with true citrus. Id like to grow a mandarinquat or two at some point. Anyone have a favorite?
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I grow meiwa kumquat and it’s very tasty. Also have something sort of similar called calamondin. I have the variegated version which looks super cool. Even the little fruits are variegated. I used to have a nagami when I lived in Southern California. Those were phenomenal tasting.
No, but I’ll be planting out one in the early spring. The rooted cuttings are still in 1 gal nursery pots, though they’ve mostly been outside, I did bring them in the greenhouse for the two hard freezes so far. Here’s one of them:
I have only tried whatever mandarinquat my local grocery store carries around the peak of the CA citrus season, but I am not a fan. It’s got the downsides of both parents: sour flesh, bitter peel. And extremely seedy.
But I don’t think I’ve ever had a kumquat I loved. Mostly the peels taste ok but the flesh is dry and sour and seedy. I don’t know what type I’ve eaten, just whatever is commonly grown in Miami (small fruit, round to oval shape).
One cross that I did like that the grocery store sometimes has during citrus season is Mexican lime x kumquat (“limequat”), which tastes almost exactly like a Mexican lime/key lime, but is elongated and slightly less seedy than key limes usually are. I wonder if they are less frost tender, too.
Thats ‘Nagami’ , the common sour kumquat. Ive always kinda liked them, but you have to like that combination of sour, spicy, and slightly bitter. Calamondin is supposedly a hybrid of a bitter type mandarin and a kumquat, and those who find ‘Nagami’ objectionable probably wouldnt care for it much. I think its great and very versatile. I generally use them like limes, but with a “happy ending” of a sweet skin (with the juice no longer there that is).The ‘Meiwa’ or sweet kumquat is an entirely different experience. The citrus oil heavy rind flavor is much subdued and theres little trace of acid. They are almost candy sweet. I find them amazing. I have a variegated (chimera) kumquat called ‘Centennial’. When its good it very good. Id compare its juiciness and flavor to sweet orange, but it is very erratic in its fruiing habits sometimes producing only small fruits that are almost entirely seeds. The full size fruits, which are less common (in my growing conditions anyway) are up to 2” or so- pretty nice sized juice bombs! I wish theyd make those type of fruits more often here.
It seems mardarinquats and limequats are pretty common in season by you, @swincher. I agree they can be really seedy. I noticed that their shelf life is quite low compared to either parent. They dry out and get wrinkly in only a few days, so perhaps youve had ones that are not in their prime. I find the flavor of juice and flesh quite good
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Here’s photos of what they look like, they seemed peak ripeness but were way too sour for me:
There is another photo in the post below that one showing them in the store here.
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Yep, linequats are fairly hardy to around 18. We carried them last year and they sold out fast. I grew a couple seedlings but didn’t get any scions to clone before we sold out. If anyone has a limequat I’d be interested in trading for a couple of cuttings.
What’s your job,working at a nursery?
Mine has a good number of fruits this year. Ive had as much as 1 1/2 gallons or so. That year I squeezed all of the juice into a jar and candied the rinds. yum!
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Ive been after ‘Eustis’ limequat myself. I find them really tasty
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Not above ground, but time will tell if the roots are alive. The base of the trunk does still look green, so it very well may pull through. That’s the benefit of being on its own roots, of course. It was happy and even showing bud swell after a few nights in the mid-upper 20s °F earlier in the winter, but the mid-January freeze knocked it back hard. It was not only a low of 14.7°F but just many days of hard freeze with the topsoil freezing solid a few inches deep:
Im rooting for you.
Pun inteded
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Since there’s been a fair bit of discussion so far in this thread about various x kumquat hybrids, I’m curious if anyone has an ichangquat?
I’ve been able to root trifoliate & grow yuzu from seed. Not meiwa at all. Any tips for rooting cuttings? I have a meiwa tree & want to share with friends bc it’s so hard to find.
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Welcome to the forum, @Vnxetti00 !
I’ve had no success rooting Meiwa, and it sounds like neither has @jsteph00921 from what he recently said in another thread. I grafted it easily, though. It does have some compatibility issues with some rootstocks. I would try grafting it instead of rooting, especially if you have rooted trifoliate and yuzu seedlings that you could try as rootstocks.
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Graft Meiwa, it is impossible to root
I got 3 Buddha hands cuttings. 2 rooted in about 7 weeks.
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One mandarin that seems like it’s rooting pretty easily is TDE3 aka Tahoe Gold. All three cuttings I struck in December are still alive, and now two of them appear to be starting a flush. The one without leaves just shed them about a week ago when the buds were first swelling.
I’ll probably end up giving these away locally, I mostly was just curious how easily they root, since I have a TDE3 tree in the greenhouse.
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