That's a beauty! Haven't you started bringing in kishu mandarins yet?

Not quite yet, but they're getting close. Love this time of year!

Patty S.

Looks good! Hoping my Primsole graft takes :)

Great, serge. It is a nice cultivar, well worth a spot in your garden.

Patty S.

I would love that time of teh year too Patty...Looking so yummy..Good job and thank you for sharing it with us in spirit and pics..Although I'd love a taste..

Have a wonderful day)

MIke

mrclint, found a few Seedless Kishu that looked almost ripe enough, so I picked one for a test. Very ripe. This is always such a treat. I swear, it is like eating candy. I feel almost guilty eating it. Almost. Mike, I hope you got yourself a Seedless Kishu. I know you're not a fan of tart citrus and this is NOT that at all. It is such an outstanding citrus, I know you'd love it.

Patty S.

Patty, I figured you had some 'Kishu' starting to come in too. Our harvest schedules are usually pretty close.

Well, after you asked, I thought I'd go up the front slope and take a closer look. From a distance, most of the fruit still looked green, and, since it really isn't supposed to be ripe until December at the earliest, I just sort of dismissed it. But, when I walked up there, I saw several that looked ripe so I figured I'd test one. So, going back up today, to pick a few more. Exceptional as always, just such a treat. And, they hang on the tree so very well, it's really nice to have them on the tree for the next few months to enjoy.

Patty S.

Anything I would say right now would simply take the focus away from Primosole Mandarin and on to kishu. Would love a picture of your Primosole tree. It's a gorgeous fruit, and I don't ever recall seeing a tree here locally.

It's still pretty young and small, but if I can sneak out tomorrow at a break from work, I'll snap a pic. No more fruit on it, all picked. I came across it sitting at Clausen's Nursery last year. I was looking for a couple of trees as gifts for a friend. I was walking along their mandarin area, and the name caught my eye. They told me they had bought out stock from a fellow in the Palm Springs/Indio area, and this fellow had a penchant for budding up some more unusual cultivars. It was the only one there, and they didn't know anything about the cultivar. It went home with me, and I did a little research on it, and realized it was an interesting and actually quite delicious mandarin.

Patty S.

Cool story and cultivar! I promise not to judge the tree too harshly. In this drought, it's enough to keep things alive. Would be interested in tree form, leaf size, shape, etc. Unknown roots? Beautiful fruit color and shape just the same.

Yes, my trees are suffering right now. I really need to do a complete overhaul of my watering system. Some are getting too much water and I had some phytophthora issues, others not enough and growth is affected. I need to scrape up about $5,000, and have it re-done properly, and put in an in-line fertigation/phytophthora treatment system. Not that hard to do, just expensive due to the number of trees. Maybe next season, as long as I don't have a wedding with one of my daughters on the horizon. And I think that is a distinct possibility.

No, don't know the roots, but Clausen's thought most likely C35, as the grower liked that rootstock.

Patty S.

Patty, very nice fruit. If it came from my neck of the woods it probably came from young's nursery. They have some more exotic cultivars and also they use C35 as their root stock (mostly). I have a gold nugget from them that has done well it's first year in the ground for me. The Young's are known for naming the daisy mandarin, also another nice cultivar.
Evan

Could very well be, Evan. I know this person or nursery has been in the industry for decades, according to Clausen's, and sold off a lot of their budded stock since they were not planning on going under screen to continue to propagate their own citrus. You should check with them to see if they still have any Primosoles hanging around, and pick on up. I think it is really our answer to a satsuma, which for me, are not their best here in my growing conditions. Many of the smaller wholesale citrus growers have been summarily put out of business due to those new growing restrictions CA that were put into place last year. All propagation must be conducted under screen. Clausen's is one of those growers. They are the grower that started the Weikiwa out here in California. They acutally used to grow them commercially, then switched to propagating citrus on a wholesale basis, and allow us regular old folks to come in and buy at retail too. They are very, very nice people. They just don't have the investment funds to drop a million or two for a screen house, as well as no level land to do so. We have a lot of citrus history in our area, don't we?

Patty S.

This post was edited by hoosierquilt on Tue, Dec 2, 14 at 11:44

Yes we do have a lot of important citrus history in SoCal. I hope that smart homeowners/ citrus growers and the USDA can keep the ACP under control, it would be a shame to end up like Florida with such devastation to their commercial crops. We stand to lose a lot if we don't win the battle.
Evan