Hi Mike, Man I am kicking myself in the pants now. Last winter my Oro produced a bunch of grapefruits, which I knew would drop. I was left with 2 nice sized fruits, and right when they were turning from green to yellow, the dropped off. I assumed that they would not ripen more, so I peeled 1 of the fruits, and "attempted" to eat it. Attempted, because it was under ripe, bitter and sour. I will wait the next time my tree produces. My 'Star Ruby' fruits on the other hand, are turning yellow now. I did read in a book of mine that citrus farmers that live on or close to the equator end up with citrus that are green and not colored in the way we think they would. Very interesting. I remember the last 2 times I was in Florida, the oranges that I was told that were the best, were actually greenish yellow. I also had a few that were brought back from Puerto Rico, and they were also greenish orange. Hopefully I will have some 'Star Ruby' grapefruits to enjoy in a month or so. I will try to get some pics posted when there ripe. My 'Improved Meyer Lemon' tree will be at least another a few months. Maybe January or February? We will see. Andrew

The flavor of Oroblanco is very mild, sweet, a little lacking in flavor. Trying to describe the flavor, it's like 45% pomelo, 35% grapefruit, and 20% orange. It's supposed to have the least bitterness out of all the grapefruit varieties, but in all fairness the two I just bought at the market were very bitter, so apparently that can be very variable with growing conditions. Pomelo is wonderful, but unfortunately these huge fruits can't always ripen to full sweetness in our climate. There are some places further inland away from the coast where the summers get scorching hot that grow them. Unlike grapefruit, Pomelos can't handle winter temperatures much colder than climate zone 9b or 10.

LOL Hobby...yeah, you already do enough damage with the varieties you get up there! They did have some interesting trees....and they were definitely a good size. The cocktail grapefruit is still bent a bit, but I am sure she will straighten out. I potted the other two, but am going to put the grapefruit in a bigger pot from the start since they need more room. I'll finish it up tomorrow.

My Oroblanco seems kind of a little sickly as well. It might be that since Oroblanco has more pomelo parentage in its genetic pool than your average grapefruit, that might be making it a little less hardy in less than optimal climates when the winter temperatures start dropping. You see, Oranges, Grapefruit, and Oroblanco are all on a continuum between mandarins and pomelo. Genetically speaking, Orange is about 25% pomelo and 75% mandarin (it is believed). Grapefruit originally resulted from a hybrid between pomelo and Orange (and so very much resembles pomelo in appearance and flavor, though there are distinct differences). And finally, Oroblanco is a hybrid between Pomelo and Grapefruit. So you can see that it is nearly a pomelo (although technically it is considered a grapefruit). Anyway, the more pomelo parentage a hybrid has, generally the less cold hardy it will be. Before the advent of grapefruit, there were very few parts of the U.S. where pomelos could have been successfully commercially grown. That is probably the reason why grapefruit has become so well known in the U.S. and pomelo hasn't. I'm in no way suggesting you can't grow pomelos or Oroblanco where you live, I'm just suggesting a possible reason they may not be doing as well as the other citrus. In fact, summers are so long and hot in Indio that it is one of the few parts of the country where pomelos will be able to ripen to maximum sweetness.