I have have had a few Ca. Minneolas that were from small growers that were sweet and had good flavor. Just about all commercially sold Minneolas these days are tart and not sweet at all. I have trouble calling that good. Florida used to have a few good Minneolas shipped here but that was long ago. Page grown in coastal Texas is full complex flavored and sweet. I have three trees. One on citrange and two on trifoliate rootstock. The tree on citrange was badly damaged in the 19 to 23 deg freeze in Dec '09, the other two were undamaged. The damaged tree took 23 to 26 deg several times with no harm. One Page was sold as a Lee. Page has the ability to give good yields, year after year, while many mandarin hybrids have alternate bearing crops. Page makes a nice sized tree, not too small or too large. Some citrus experts consider Page the standard for citrus flavor with balance of complexity, richness and sweetness. I tend to agree. Some line up in favor of Minneola. I have never seen a Page that was not of good quality from a healthy tree in season. I cannot be say that of Minneola. Much has been said of Page being too small. Most of the fruit on the Pages I have seen are as large or larger than the Dancy's, and Sunbursts in the markets. Only 1/4 to 1/3 of the fruit is small and that is still larger than the "Cuties" that they are selling in today's markets. Yes the small fruit is hard to peel. I juice them and blend that with other juice that needs upgrading. Minneola ripens late in winter here and the trees are generally larger than can be covered to prevent crop loss during a hard freeze. Page holds well on the tree after ripening in early December, before fruit damage is a problem. A big old Minneola full of ripening fruit in late Dec. is an awsome sight. And it is also one I don't want to worry about. I have some Clem. x Orlando tan-tangelos that give such good fruit that it was an easy decision for me to plant them instead either of the two Minneolas I had on hand. These were Nova, Fairchild, and F-6-9-10. On a given year one of them is likely to be as good or slightly better than Page. I have a Fortune that on some years is as good a sweet Minneola but some years is just like a tart Minneola.

Thank you, Carly and Mike, I'm doing fine, I've just had some disturbing issues coming up with both my job as well as my husband's, which has taken me away from forum activity. My citrus are all doing very well, time for some micronutrients, as for us in this part of S. California, the cold temps in combination with our drenching winter rains just leach out all the micronutrients in our soil, and what's left gets locked out due to our somewhat higher pH. So, I need to apply micronutrients to the soil as well as with a foliar application starting now. Interestingly, some citrus are nearly unaffected, like my Cara Cara, while others, like my blood oranges are really getting chlorotic looking. I think I'll also apply some chicken manure as well, but not so sure extra nitrogen at this point in the season is really helpful. It truly is a micronutrient issue we have here, especially those of us on DG (decomposed granite) soils. So, my line up is pretty much complete, unless I come across a Sumo mandarin in the near future (although I have a little seedling limping along). Picked one Oro Blanco a little early just to test, and it was so sweet, it tasted like it had sugar on it, but it was a wee bit dry. First crop, so not expecting great things. Things are ripening up and just about ready for picking, yummm: Grapefruit Rio Red Cocktail Melogold Oro Blanco Valentine Pummelo Mato Buntan Pummelo Tahitian (Sarawak) Pummelo Tangelolo/Tangors/Orangelos Wekiwa Tangelolo Ortanique Tangor Chironja Orangelo Mandarin Pixie Clementine-Nules Algerian/Clementine Gold Nugget Page Tango Nova California Honey Ponkan Manadrin Lime Bearss Lemon Meyer Improved Eureka "Pink Lemonade Eureka (Variegated)" Palestine Lime Orange Moro Blood Sanguinelli Blood Tarocco Blood Cara Cara Valencia Red Smith Valencia Vaniglia Sanguigno Blood Kumquat Miewa Kumquat Nagami Kumquat Variegated Calamondin Patty S.

Growing most types of fruit from seed is generally a bad idea. There is a high chance the fruit will not be as good as the parent variety. For those of you who are not aware of how this works, in nature fruit species can have a lot of genetic diversity from generation to generation. When a good producing tree is found, it then gets propagated from cuttings. People usually do not want to take the trouble of growing a fruit tree from seed when they do not even know whether the fruit will be good. Generally though, lemons produce truer to seed than oranges do. Not talking about citrus here, but for fruit trees in general, it is theoretically possible to breed fruit that produces truer to seed, but it takes many more generations of breeding. These are often traditional heirloom varieties that have been around a long time. Whereas the seed from a Navel orange will not really result in a Navel variety, some of these heirloom varieties can essentially be continually propagated from seed. The terms "heirloom", "true to seed", and fruit "variety" can all be very relative and ambiguous terms.

Evan, most likely just marketed by Sunkist, purchased from USA commercial satsuma growers. I think citrus, especially mandarins, are really seeing a renaissance here in the USA, as parents try to find healthier snacks for their kiddos. One of the reasons the "Cutie" marketing ploy to sell small, seedless, easy to peel super sweet mandarin cultivars has seen such success. I find this funny. I've always had a love affair with that type of mandarin. Growing up as a kid in Orange County, I always looked forward to my little Clementine mandarin tucked into the toe of my Christmas stocking. It was better than candy. We had citrus all the time, the first house I lived in (and was born in), was built in an old Valencia orange orchard. My dad went to the developer and told him not to take out all the beautiful orange trees - to leave a few in each backyard. That it would sell the houses faster. The builder did, it did sell the homes faster, and we had 3 or 4 beautiful orange trees in our yard, and had fresh OJ every morning. Fond memories of citrus as a kid. Patty S.