Does allowing a Persian lime to turn yellow before juicing affect the quality of the juice?
What rootstock were your kumquats grafted onto? I have 2 potted kumquats (Meiwa and Nordman Seedless Nagami) that I bring inside every winter but I’m hoping to grow some in the ground eventually but probably need some protection. Our coldest winter low here so far is about 6F.
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I have commercially-grown kumquats on both Flying Dragon/trifoliate and citrange (and have also budded by own on Thomasville citrangequat). I find the growth is better on Flying Dragon or regular trifoliate, than citrange. Possibly there is some incompatibility at play here. The former should also provide better freeze protection due to deeper quiescence than citrange. If you bought your kumquat plants, you probably didn’t have a choice and may not even know what rootstock they are budded on.
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I don’t think lime peel color reflects taste at all, unless spoiling has started. Commercially grown Limes (and lemons) are all picked by size, not color. Lemons get treated with ethylene post-harvest to degreen them before shipping to retail stores (since consumers now expect lemons to be yellow!). Since neither require sugar-buildup for use (I.e. “ripening”), you can begin harvesting both lemons and limes once they reach adequate juice content. Leaving them until they fully color-up risks spoilage.
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I started a bunch of Flying Dragon seedlings this year and will graft kumquats on those in the Spring, and plant them in the ground to see if they’ll survive the winter here. I successfully grafted the seedless Nagami onto 2 Meiwa seedlings this year as a trial.
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Thanks for explaining that. I try to get my Persian limes juiced before any start showing the damage you pictured.
Pretty sure they sell citrus in Florida as well, especially at the big box stores. I know they sell blueberries, blackberries and guavas here, I can’t remember if their labels are on the meyers and key limes as well.
Ate another uga seedless Changsha today. This one was perfect blend of acidity and sweet. I left about 4 on the tree to see how long the quality lasts on the tree. Supposedly they can hang till January without any hard frosts. The boys loved these, much better than any grocery store satsumas.
1 more Xie Shan to sample.
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Navel orange grafted to Texas Red Seedling. It produce a different shape. Same color as the grapefruit.
Mandarin grafted to Texas Red Seedling. It produce a slightly different shape. Same color as the grapefruit.
Texas Red Seedling fruit. This is the biggest one on the tree.
The same mandarin grafted to hybrid citrus root stock. The color is orange and the shape is like the original. The size is twice the size of the original.
The root stock sometime dictate the color, shape, and size.
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How many years from seed to fruit for the grapefruit? Is it in-ground now? If so, what is your approximate location? Your top-worked mandarin fruit look great!
5 years to fruits. Tree is in the ground. It’s round, but only 10ft tall. It’s about 10 years old. Central CA where there is plenty of sun in the growing season. The fruit hang on the tree for a long time.
Thanks for the details. In my formal classes on growing citrus I often get asked how long from seed to first fruit by students. I have a good friend here in Texas that ate a good-tasting grapefruit in graduate school and decided to plant a seed from it. A couple years before he retired (probably 30+ years after leaving graduate school) it finally flowered and fruited. Kinda of a worse-case scenario. I planted some Golden Bean (aka Hong Kong) kumquat seeds a couple years ago and they bloomed and fruited 6 months later when only about 4 inches tall! Quite a range! I usually tell my students to plan on between 5 and 8 years for well-cared for citrus seedlings to start flowering.
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the mulberries did a video on “tricks” breeding programs use to get faster flowering and fruiting that i thought was interesting:
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been close to a month since i posted about my first kimbrough fruit off the tree:
i just picked and ate the last fruit:
same as before with very little flavor in any direction. heres to next year 
theres still a fruit hanging on my owari that ill try soon. if its any different ill post about it.
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I don’t want to make anyone feel inadequate, but I have two totally rad, very unripe Indio Mandarinquats. They smell pleasantly limey. Nickel for scale.
I’m going to mince them and put them in elderberry pie, maybe? I usually use about half a lemon per pie, so eh?
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Do you mix other berries like blueberries with the elderberries? I’m so curious given elderberries themselves don’t really have much of a sweet fruity flavor.
I have picked the last fruit from this Cincinnati, Ohio Meiwa kumquat on Flying dragon tree for a while.
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Is there any possibility that the fruit hung on the tree for too long and were overripe? I don’t have the necessary experience with growing citrus to answer this myself but I’ve got the impression that the color of a fruit doesn’t necessarily correlate with its ripening.
First Ponkan of the season, I’ll wait for the other 4 as it was good but still a bit tart. Doesn’t compare to the Owari so far.
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not sure. ive heard that they can take a few years of fruiting to get to optimal flavor. also, that they can hang for a while as well. hopefully they will put on some size and more fruit so i can taste a range of them over time as they ripen.