We recently experienced some snow / ice and a low of about 5F. I did not protect my Thomasville citrangequat, we will see how it rebounds. My first guess is the top 2-3 feet will die back.
I think it’s 4 years old now. Only time I’ve protect it was a -1F night with no snow on the ground to cover it any.
Anyone else growing this cold hardy citrus? What lows have yours seen and lived?
@VirginiaFruitGrower I cant say Im looking forward to your tree damage report but I still need to here about it.
I have several 1–2-year-old Thomasville seedlings (they appear to be apomictic clones) growing in small pots. I brought them indoors recently, but they were exposed to single-digit temperatures several times with no dieback—only leaf drop. They’re quite hardy. If you’re concerned, you can scratch the bark with a fingernail or knife to check whether the tissue underneath is green.
I had a one year old grafted plant that was actually killed by a low in the mid teens. However, it was recently planted and I had let it fruit despite it being small and young which doubtless stressed the plant.
I had a lot of issues with plant coverings in this blizzard. We had very high winds and the incandescent lights tripped the outdoor outlet. The Glen, arctic frost, Okitsu, Meyer, Marumi, Owari, a kishu, a clementine and brown select are all uncovered. Most of them look really sad. The kishu looks mostly unfazed completely.
Don’t think these are gonna blow off at this point. The drift is about two and a half feet deep.
I didn’t have the material or time to cover some of my other plants, a few satsumas are just gonna have to pull through the 13F we’re getting tonight as best they can.
Yeah the kishu is a graft I made on a kuharske rootstock I believe. I’ve never protected it, it has grown slowly but never lost a leaf. Now the covers are fine but I lost two the day before and it was too windy so I just tossed them in the shed. Whatever dies is getting grafted over if it dies. I imagine all this snow, 3 ft drifts in the deepest spots will benefit me quite a lot. I’d say the yard got about 4-6” but it’s hard to gauge with all the drifts.
I’m not too concerned about it surviving. It’s lived through weather like this in the past. More just hoping I get fruit some year after die backs like this.
I’ve never heard of kishu. How are the fruits and how hardy is it supposed to be?
Mine looks similar, a little more sun scalding here in NJ. I don’t know if it’s alive since we haven’t gone above freezing for 9 days and nights but the tree is against a wall which radiates heat so maybe the few degrees will make the difference.
Kishu is an old Japanese variety. It’s one of the parents of satsuma mandarins.
They’re small but otherwise really awesome!
Not my photos
It’s early, very sweet, has great flavor, peels incredibly easily, and the variant typically sold are seedless. Hardiness numbers are hard to find online, but in my limited experience so far it looks like a decently hardy mandarin, probably good into the upper teens if healthy and established. Not as good as satsuma or Changsha mandarin hardiness, but decent and better than oranges for example. Might be in the same ballpark as Clementine, at least from what I’ve seen from my plants.
My experience is their hardiness is very good, I think due to how much earlier they ripen they hit dormancy much quicker than kumquats, who are hardy but I have damage on them annually due to them still holding fruits. I’ve never had any damage to kishu and I’ve never provided any protection.
2 year kishu graft, it’s not in an ideal spot. Not a lot of sun
4-5 year old marumi
Typically I would cover this row of citrus but it was too windy to keep it covered. Let’s see if I get any fruit this spring or not, my guess is very limited blooms overall.
My thomasville is fine, but we only got to 14 degrees here. It has gone to 6 here and survived with dieback. The leaf drop will happen with extreme cold, but as long as the stems and trunk are green, it will releaf in the spring.
In your experience does leaf die back impact fruiting or just stem die back?
Just the stem die back. I’ve seen branches flower without leaves nearby (but still lower on the branch). The plant does tend to leaf out in force if fed enough. Considering that it blooms multiple times a year, even if the first bloom just puts leaves back, the next blooms will set a crop.
Thanks for the info! Really hoping to get fruit one of these years!
