Exhibit A of why I have so many citrus trees

Picking Kishu in the middle of the night

Where did you find the Golden Grapefruit? I have tasted a few fruits and they are very good, like a Cocktail but less tart. The Indio mandarin fruits that are grown in SoCal (UCR riverside research station, citrus) are not sour at all, super sweet, I was so surprised when a volunteer from UCR brought fruits to our CRFG mtg. Now I have it grafted on my trees.
For many years (circa 30+) Golden Grapefruit trees (a bud-sport first discovered at the Rio Farms Citrus non-profit research cooperative in south Texas) were budded and sold legally by one of the 3 licensed citrus growers for southeastern Texas (Brazos Citrus Nursery). About 6 years ago the Texas Certified Citrus Budwood Program dropped it from their list of available cultivars (only trees sourced from their budwood program can be legally sold in Texas). I bought one of the very last of those legally-propagated trees in the “clearance” pile at our local nursery. I get a lot of local requests for Golden Grapefruit cuttings (which I as a rule, do not fulfill, to comply with quarantine laws). Here is a photo of my Golden Grapefruit from last December. Seedy, but tasty:
I will have to dig up my graph of annual fruiting Citrus varieties. Prior to our horrible freeze of February 2021, I typically had about 60 varieties with at least a few fruit on them. In 2021 I had only seven (3 from container trees). I have slowly climbed back up to about 45 varieties last year.
I tasted a couple of fruits before, taste is very good, not the best grapefruit (I like Valentine, Cocktail more) but the color is so unique. Your fruits look great, congratulations on growing it. I have all the rare fruits but not that one.
I ask because the trees I keep in Oregon (Willamette Valley) have varying responses to defoliation. The yuzu seems unbothered and makes abundant crops after defoliation from cold. Less hardy specimens not so much. I’m curious if your orientation, which quickly brings very warm temps, allows more varieties to rebound. Kind of a double edged sword that warmer winter weather.
Defoliation of Citrus definitely reduces, or entirely eliminates, fruit production that year. My Yuzu froze to the ground in 2021 (9F), but has held it’s leaves after all the subsequent hard freezes (12 F,17 F, and now 20 F), so I don’t have a comparison for you. If defoliation is the result of bark splitting, then almost always those branches will die outright. The huge temperature swings here (Houston area) in winter are really hard on Citrus. Our 20 F freeze a couple weeks ago is being followed by lower-80 F highs this week. Nothing like roller coaster weather to really confuse fruit trees!
The seediness and tough segment membranes of Golden GF are real minuses, but they have very tasty and abundant juice. My wife and I also enjoy our Cocktail GF. For some reason our Valentine fruits in this area have been really bad the past couple years. Maybe the consecutive summer droughts are to blame? Here is a good friend’s (Bill Arendt) Valentine fruit last December:
Shouldn’t ‘Valentine’ be redder, typically?
Cocktail Grapefruit ice cream float. Had the munchies last night and was looking for a midnight snack. Saw the juicer on the counter, remembered I picked a bunch of Cocktail Grapefruits earlier and that I bought ice cream a few days ago, this was the result. Definitely doing this again because it was absolutely fantastic!
Here’s my Valentine fruits from last year, it was nice and red. This year it was pink color inside.
Yes,Valentine develops a beautiful red flesh color, in California! In SE Texas mine have never gotten deep red, only pale pinkish when kept on the tree till February. Keeping citrus fruit on my trees until February has been impossible here since 2021 due to our successive hard freezes.
I think it takes consistent cold weather for citrus to develop its red colors if i recall correctly. There were a few oranges on my tree and they didn’t start coloring up until i turned off the heaters for them.
It took about 2 weeks to start seeing the deep red colors for my blood oranges. I feel like the 2 months of really cold but not killing weather was needed for the deep reds.
Thanks, that’s what I suspected. Had some red and purple flesh and skin citrus in Arizona, plenty of counter-balancing sourness.
Friend sent me box of citrus from coastal Florida, almost didn’t recognize them. So sweet, green smooth skin and pale flesh.
Yes, the differences between Citrus grown on semitropical climates (e.g. Florida, SE Texas) and those grown in subtropical areas (e.g. Arizona, So. Cal.) are striking (peel thickness and color, sweetness, juiciness, ripening date, etc.). My Moro, Tarocco, Ruby, Smith Red, etc. blood oranges may get a few flecks of red inside by January, but never anything like the dark purple of the cold-garage-treated Amoa 8 above, or the California-grown Valentine and Tarocco. Now those have impressive coloration!
A “Cocktail Float!” How novel. I will absolutely have to try that with my Cocktail fruit this fall. My wife is very partial to the low-acid taste of Cocktail (she raves about the taste my Vaniglia Sanguinia). I prefer a little more acid in my fruit.
Following up on my Jan. 3 post above about making another batch of 100% Texas-grown (my Texas lemons, Texas sugar, Texas whiskey, Texas tap water) Limoncello from my last couple dozen Variegated Eureka lemons. Yesterday I finished off this batch. I strained the whiskey/zest mixture through a coffee filter, added an equal amount of simple syrup, and 2 fluid ounces of Meyer lemon juice. Wow, good stuff! I will take the final product with me tomorrow to our annual Houston area chapter of the Texas Rare Fruit Growers scion exchange for sharing. Last year I passed it out just before our fund-raising plant auction and I couldn’t believe how much some folks were bidding for the donated fruit trees! ROFL. BTW, the goofy label was generated by Bing’s AI-powered Image Creator. Looks like it had been sipping my Limoncello before it went to the drawing board.
I’m glad you didn’t import your tap water to ruin the 100% Texas.
Do you use a zest or whole peel? I use whole peel for my arancello.
I used zest from about 20 lemons (about 1 cup of zest). Result is strongly flavored. About 50 proof final product.