Thank you all so much for the input, appreciate it. I think I am more interested in knowing the specifics of the fruit traits. I want to use as a lemon/lime/Seville sour orange substitute for the juice for salad dressings, drinks, seafood seasoning. I can definitely wrap it up in burlap and such even xmas lights for the first couple seasons or bring it indoors like the rest of my citrus the first couple winters. Eventually though I want to plant it in warm microclimate spot I have for it in zone7a. I assume all these have fragrant blossoms typical of citrus which is also a requirement? I did get to speak with Mckenzie farms forgot to ask if these all have fragrant blossoms or if any stand out for blossom fragrance. I think Ichang may have the largest and most fragrant blossoms. But the others should have fragrant blossoms too? So basically the most important thing to me to is: juice quantity, juice quality (no offtastes/bitterness/astringency or extremely little), and blossom fragrance. Here are my notes based on sleuthing: Yuzu- Only real problem is here is juice content is so small- sounds like a teaspoon per fruit due to both small fruit (think 4,5 cm diameter tangerines as standard size) and also very thick peel, lots of seed, and occasionally dry. I am confident the QUALITY of the sour juice is good--as it is a classic culinary juice. Aromatic, zesty juice. The rind is awesome on these, but I have no interest in rind. It sounds like per fruit it's almost a 1:6 ratio Yuzu juice to lime. Do I really want to be juicing 6 fruit every time I can just a lime or one of the below 2? Maybe if the juice is that awesome--which it could be. Shangjuan/Ichang lemon- Large fruit with 1/2 cup sour juice! Very seedy, thick peel, but still gives 1/2 cup sour juice which is a lot. The quality is suspect--some say it can used as lemon, some say it is way too sour and caustic like straight up vinegar with no citrusy flavor/zest/aroma. So maybe juice quantity over quality on this one. Also I think I read it doesn't keep well? Thomasville Citrangequat- seems like the best option and a compromise. A 4cm x6cm fruit rough standard size (close to size as Yuzu, but oblong shape) but is juicy, not insanely thick skin, not insanely seedy. Not sure how much juice it offers per fruit--but is described as juicy and I'm sure it is more juice at least than the Yuzu. The quality sounds good too and may be like the Seville sour orange with some orangey flavor in the sour juice. My main concern with this one is if it's only juicy when RIPE--to my knowledge citrus gets juicier as it gets ripe. Most people suggest using underripe Thomasville as lemon substitute--are these relativey DRY sour wedges though? The descriptions of juicy are surely describing the truly ripe fruit which I will not count on getting in zone 7a nor do I desire. I want something that is juicy when it is sour (like a lemon/lime/Seville sour orange), not dry when it is sour because the sourness is due to underripeness (like an underripe standard sweet orange--those are a bit dry.). So overall, I think thomasville wins for me, but a taste test would help since I'm nitpicking on the quality traits--I may try to taste test some in November. Also thomasville sounds like it's a half notch hardier than Ichang. If anyone else has anymore info or thoughts that would be great. Remaining questions- Blossom fragrances? How much juice can you get from a sour underripe thomasville?

It looks like I picked up Ken's "cranky rants" banner, LOL. I worked in a cannery when I was in college. When you're sourcing fruit, determining standards in the field, grading, testing in the lab, it's easy to arrive at consistency. Lemons by the boxcar tend to average out and I certainly can see that for commercial applications a ton of lemons is consistently more acidic than an equivalent amount of bottled. But the home canner uses only one or two or three lemons, which individually may be lower in acidity. Who can know? There is just no way to account for all the things which may happen with a canning formula in the home kitchen. You make applesauce and use windfalls, which are less acid than apples picked from the tree, not even imagining it's an issue. Inexperienced canners, especially, are prone to doing the unimaginable. I can say as a teacher, I can't count the ways the human mind can re-configure the most basic of instructions. I told a friend how to can tomatoes, believing I'd covered every possible way for it to go wrong, only to discover he'd decided water up to the level of the fruit in the jar was sufficient for a boiling water bath. Fortunately, my husband happened to go down the street to visit, spotted the error and insisted he re-process the batch. Sorry if I came across as hostile. Canning fatigue. Like farmers, glad to see the end of harvest. Carol

Thanks. That's is what I was thinking too, but was hoping to confirm it from a more experienced crew than I! This will only be my third canning experience -- I put up jalapeno's last year. This year my garden is much more productive and so far I have canned 4 quarts of salsa using a recipe from the Bell Blue Book.

Freeze the rind without grating it - it's much easier to use this way. I generally use the whole rinds in chicken stock and only freeze them when there are only a few lemons left on my tree. Since I have a Meyer lemon tree, the rind is easier to zest/grate when it is frozen, as it is very soft otherwise. What type of lemon tree do you have? I made Greek meatballs yesterday but didn't have the eggs to make the avgolemono sauce, and so I will probably put the meatballs into some eggrolls or phyllo dough. Lars