Very - VERY - nice!!!!!

George, do you have one of these? If not, you need one...;). I can only imagine in the ground how great this tree would be.

Sure looks tasty! It's funny how many tree varieties some of you have ordering mail order. My local big box stores have nice citrus that are grafted and grown at a wholesale nursery right here in town. They are fresh and healthy since they didn't have a long ride in a big truck but they don't offer near the variety some of your favorite shippers offer. Actually, some of the shippers like Four Winds might not be allowed to ship to Texas since we are a commercial citrus production state. I haven't looked to see if certified disease-free trees can be shipped. In any event, thanks for sharing a recommendation!

Hi Laura, I hope to have one in the ground in a couple of years. I just had a bud-stick atop a Carrizo rootstock rooting wake up and begin growing over the holidays. I already began the process of cutting a Japanese Maple tree down in such anticipation!@@@@

But, after reading about relative HLB effects, I believe that I'd prefer it on X639 rootstock,,, so I will be grafting again this coming spring and that would delay planting.

Laura - all - I am curious what rootstock your Dekopons are grafted onto?

Also curious if any of you "cure" it for an length of time? - and how?

- George

That is a fancy looking scale. Does it measure the Brix to acid ratio of citrus. Store bought Dekopon fruit come in around 12. With yours coming in at 13-7/8 I would imagine it was very tasty.

Steve

Very exciting!!!

Great looking fruit !!! Laura my Dekopon fruit tasted like candy and they didn't look half as nice as that piece of fruit I can only imagine how great it tasted .

Brian

Thanks guys. George, I will check the tag but I got it from Harris in FL. Yeah, it was huge and very juicy. I had tasted one from the store last year and it was not nearly as good as this one. I was pleasantly surprised bc I had not been impressed with the only one I had ever tried from last year. Steve, the other that is on the tree that is almost ripe is not quite that big...probably around the 12 oz like you said. George, I did not “cure” it at all, but it has been sitting on the tree for a while since it turned orange...maybe a few weeks. Does that count? We cut it and immediately ate it! Brian...I wonder if yours would have turned more orange if you’d let them stay on the tree longer. From what you said though, it did not affect the flavor. John, you are lucky that you have nice citrus nearby. There are a few nurseries around here that carry them, but they have definitely sat on a truck for a while. I have not doubt that with the temps we are seeing, no citrus will be shipping up north for a while...

George, I just checked the tag from Harris and what it says for rootstock is RICH...no idea what that means.

I have an in ground Dekopon tree. As Laura says the fruit really is excellent and so VERY sweet. One note I would pass along, is that Dekopon is an alternate bearing variety. Therefore, to insure a crop for the next year, at least for an in ground tree and probably even for a container tree, the fruit must be thinned down some to reduce the tree's alternate bearing effect. When a Dekopon sets a good crop and the fruit load is not reduced, the tree is drained of much of its carbohydrate reserves, the following year the tree will produce VERY little in the way of fruit.

That is great to know Steve and Silica. Silica, my tree only has two fruits on it now, but I will definitely keep that in mind for future years. Thanks!

Laura, IS THAT THE SAME ONE you ordered from you know where just a year or two ago? I can't believe you even still have that tree let alone fruit! Mines dies last spring..I really want another one after what you described..I didn't think it was such a huge loss until now..Thank you for sharing

Great job

Mike

Yep Mike...same tree! I got it summer 2016 and I remember posting about it here bc it was lopsided and the trunk could not support the canopy. I had to chop off a branch and stake it up for a short while. You’d never know now...it is very sturdy ;). Mike, I thought of you bc it seemed to have no acid. I think you may be able to eat the fruit.

Beautiful! Makes my mouth water just looking at that fruit.

Laura, guess what I am ordering tomorrow!? Yup, thank you

Mike

Oh that is exciting, Laura! Bravo for your efforts to grow such a beautiful fruit! Dekopon is my number one favorite sweet citrus fruit. I tried the fruit last summer for the first time (store bought fruit) and I loved it, I love the shape of it and the taste of it. Really want to get one :)

Dekopon/Shiranui is a very distincitive fruit, being a hybrid of the Kiyomi tangor and the Ponkan tangerine, it is mostly mandarin with some orange thrown in. So glad to hear that it does well in containers! I will get one some day.

Laura after reading your post last night, I spent more time than I care to admit searching Dekopon on the internet. It appears Harris doesn’t currently sell them.

I keep trying to plan which mandarin varieties would go best with what I already have in terms of production, peak ripeness and flavor, but I want them all.

Outstanding. Fruit I’ve seen at store is smaller, what are you feeding that boy?!?!

Alanna, harris has it under the name of shiranui!

Yep...Amy is right. It is under the name shiranui at Harris. Bossy...thanks! It has been a good grower.

Laura, that is one beautiful Dekopon! Interesting that your tree is grafted on Rich.. I also purchased my young Dekopon/Shiranui from Harris in the summer of 2016. My tree is grafted on KUH. In the fall I took it out of its container and planted it in the ground in my gh. It has had a lot of new growth and blooms that developed into many fruits. Most of the fruits have fallen off since, but I noticed that the young developing fruits have ridges all around them. Did yours?

If you look closely you can see the ridges around the fruits shape. Is that what your young developing Dekopon fruit looked like? I am wondering if I have a different variety that was tagged wrong??

You can see that they misspelled the name on the tag.. oops! lol

My Meiwa from Harris is grafted to KUH Kuharske Citrange

KUH Kuharske Citrange info

Steve

Thank you for the link, Steve. I am reading up on it.

Jinny, I don’t remember if they had ridges. There may be a few tiny ones on it now, but I’m going to have to search bc they may have fallen off. Your tree looks very healthy and happy Jinny! That is interesting about the graft difference of rootstock.

Mine is also from harris and is grafted on cleopatra!

Jinny, yes, the tiny fruitlets do have ridges like yours. Once they fill out a little bit more, they lose the ridges and start to look bumpy.

It would be interesting to call Harris and find out why they use such a variety of rootstocks.

Ah, thank you, Laura! That is good to know.. Yes, it is interesting to read that the Dekopon trees each of us have from Harris are grafted on different rootstocks. We can compare notes on growing habits, tolerance, fruit quality/taste, etc.. We know Laura has some pretty nice looking and tasty fruit from her tree that is grafted on Rich! Mine is in the ground so we shall see how it does this coming year.

With so many different rootstocks I wonder how Harris decides which tree to send for mail orders. I did not request a certain rootstock at the time because I did not know what the varieties were on at the time.

Yes, we should compare notes. Mine has grown very well and I was a bit disappointed in it when I first got it because, as I mentioned above, it was so tightly staked and had a big canopy that the trunk could not support. I thought it would take a very long time to strengthen the trunk, but it really made a rapid comeback. My tree currently is losing some leaves from the lower areas of the branches. I think it has a slight mite issue. I have been spraying all my trees about once a week and am due for another spraying...

Laura - that is a wild-looking but beautiful piece of fruit! I am amazed at the size too. Great info on the taste too. :-D

jinny - it's interesting that you mention ridges on the fruitlets. I was looking at some the young fruitlets on my Tango and they have those ridges too. Once the oldest of the tiny fruit got a bit bigger, the ridges smoothed out.

Just tried one today for the first time. What a cool citrus fruit!

Where can Californians get this tree? :) ---- Ideally, standard or semi-dwarf.