Changsha Mandarin always dry and bland - reasons?

[till]

I have a Changsha Mandarin for some years now. It is grafted on Flying Dragon and quite slow growing, slower than the rootstock when it that was allowed to grow. I had my Changsha first in a unheated glashouse where it stood in a relatively shadowy position. Fruits were allways small and dry, seeds mostly undeveloped. I replanted it into my wintergarden into a sunny position in open ground. Growth was a bit better, flowering abundant and fruits bigger. I also got a few seeds - only a few perhaps because of cross pollination. But fruits were still quite dry and their taste bland, not much suggar almost no acids. I feared that I did not water the plant enough. So I assured that I it had enough water last year. The fruits became a little bit bigger but again the pulp was not juicy, the taste very bland, hardly any suggar and hardly any acids. There were, however, a number of fully developed seeds in the fruits (pollen was from Dunstan Citrumelo).

What are your experiences with Changsha? Has it a tendency to produce dry bland fruits? I have no real clue what goes wrong with my plant. I had very good Morton fruits, a heavy crop of Calamondin, pretty good Limequats (seems to be Tavares), nice Karlik II fruits and some other well developed fruits of other citrus. Do I have the wrong rootstock? I have no idea.

[mikkel]

There are probably individual differences between individual types. In old thgreads I have already read about this issue. The bottom line was that there are better selections.

[till]

Thank you, Mikkel. It is indeed hard for me not to see genetic reasons. If what you write is the main issue then I must conclude that my Changsha is totally useless in the kitchen and probably not very useful in breeding. I suppose that juiciness is a dominant trait so that hybrids may be interesting but the question remains why using this Changsha.

[ilya11]

What was a source of your plant?

I had Changsha from three different sources, all had rather juicy fruits and quite good sugar/acid ratio.

[Sylvain]

Mine is like the Till's one.

[ilya11]

[mikkel]

ilya11 pictures from vgy.me disappear quite often lately.

[hardyvermont]

I have had a Changsha that tasted good, another that was bland, but the origin of the fruits is unknown.  Eyckr has one that he calls Honey Changsha due to its better flavor. 

[poncirusguy]

Honey Changsha is an altered Changsha that has less sees.  I believe it was from irradiated seeds.

[hardyvermont]

Jan 26, 2023 22:41:35 GMT -5 poncirusguy said:

Honey Changsha is an altered Changsha that has less sees.  I believe it was from irradiated seeds.

Honey Changsha was grown from seed by Eyckr, it is seedy.  Sweet Frost is irradiated Changsha.