Prague

[Florian]

I planted out my Prague chimera this year. I grafted it high on Poncirus. No flowers on this one yet.

Sylvain says it is coldhardy to at least -15C which would be plenty enough for my place. We usually get -10/-12C at most.

Much more decisive for its survival here will be its ability to tolerate prolonged freezes with days or even weeks below 0C.

My potted one has flowered for several years but never set fruit until this year. I am very curious to taste the fruit.

It really is not a handsome plant but if it does produce good fruit, I really don't care . Only drawback seems to be erratic yield – Sylvain seems to be the only one with regular crops.

[ilya11]

It seems it is alors late maturing, hope you will not have an early freeze.

[Florian]

This has been one of the worst springs ever, Ilya. Everything is weeks behind. It even snowed in May(!). E.g. my Hibiscus moscheutos started flowering more than a month later than usual. Long story short: it has been a very bad year and it is the first fruit which will not be representative (hopefully).

[Sylvain]

Sept 7, 2019 1:51:04 GMT -5 ilya11 said:

It seems it is alors late maturing, hope you will not have an early freeze.

No, it is early maturing, around christmas.
This is for the spring flowers. It use to have flowers in the summer and these one give late fruits.

[zap]

Hi Florian;

maybe it is not self pollinating? Or only partially self fruitful?

(I'm sure you already thought of that)

I'm so mad my computer crashed and I lost a bunch of files.
But there are scientific papers, on citrus pollen storage. And they use drying, and simple freezer storage, as a baseline control sometimes...
So the data is there in the charts, about drying pollen storage, and freezer storage, at approx -20 deg Celsius.

They got 20% to 40% pollen germination, at 12 months. (I will only be close on my numbers it's from memory)
But Veggie pollen can be dried in the refrigerator, and then dry pollen can be frozen temporarily for a year ~~~~
Scientists use liq'Nitrogen. I'd skip that unless you have some laying around unused?

You could collect flowers from other citrus trees, dry / freeze /store. Especially some cold tolerant trees?

(but you tried that already?)

Best wishes,
Zap.

[Sylvain]

Florian congratulation for the fruits.

[zap]

I would just love to have one of those trees!
I was going to suggest something I read someplace about chimeras. And that is that different branches can have different traits?
So you might want to label some of the branches (or make a map), take a picture and label it. I find people play with plant labels - sometimes a map works so much better. Everyone says it's birds .. but I lose so many, uggh.

But supposedly different branches, can have inner, outer, or mixed characteristics, phenotype? I think phenotype might be a mis-usage.
And lots of people have told me the skinny green shoots that grow strait up, are poor producers. In the U.S. they call them "water branches"

Please let us know how those fruit turn out!
ZAP

PS you might want to label the fruit in case you have a double poncirrus branch {poncirus((poncirus/inner))outer}
It's been described by one grower.

[roberto]

Zap, what do you mean "make a map"? I don't know if branches are different in their texture. I don't think so. What sometimes happens is, that from one bud grows a pure Poncirus offspring. I had this on my mother plant. I crafted it, but it was just Poncirus, nothing special about it. Fruits taste like normal Satsuma.

[Sylvain]

> lots of people have told me the skinny green shoots that grow strait up, are poor producers.
It is not true for citrus.

> you might want to label the fruit in case you have a double poncirrus branch {poncirus((poncirus/inner))outer}

I don't understand a word!  

[zap]

Hi Guys:
sorry about the late response. It's been raining for a week. Tryin to get stuff done outdoors.

Pulled some cartilage last spring- so not too many tomato hybrids to grow out this summer....

OK:

Sylvain: Re: double poncirrus branch {poncirus((poncirus/inner))outer}.
I was just trying to make a diagram out of Punctuation. FAIL.. my bad.

[zap]

Sept 19, 2019 6:07:08 GMT -5 roberto said:

Zap, what do you mean "make a map"? I don't know if branches are different in their texture. I don't think so. What sometimes happens is, that from one bud grows a pure Poncirus offspring. I had this on my mother plant. I crafted it, but it was just Poncirus, nothing special about it. Fruits taste like normal Satsuma.

Hi Roberto.  Yes that's close to what I meant,  I just did not say it as well.

People always seem to fuss with my plant labels.  So I make maps of the garden, in case a variety label goes missing.  I'm always trying to improve on My tomato's.   My best offering this season is a Box car willy X Black Krim Tomato that happened accidentally - no skill involved.  But still a step forwards!

I thought Perhaps a large printout-photo of the Prague tree, and just label the printout with pencil.  A sort of map.

If a PT/PT branch is a sucker, would a Satsuma/satsuma branch be a sort of a Sport? Or would it merely be a Normal Satsuma branch?

Best wishes,

ZAP

[roberto]

Zap wrote:

If a PT/PT branch is a sucker, would a Satsuma/satsuma branch be a sort of a Sport? Or would it merely be a Normal Satsuma branch?

Zap, the pure PT branch I had was not a sucker. It did not come from the rootstock. The PT-branch appeared somewhere in the crown of my tree. But I never had a pure Satsuma-branch. But if there were such an offspring I woud not see it as a sport. Sport is a bud-mutation. Satsuma DNA seems to be present in Prag. Therefore you do not need a mutation to get Satsuma tissue. That is what I think. I am not an expert on that.

[zap]

Sept 26, 2019 5:49:55 GMT -5 roberto said:

 if there were such an offspring I woud not see it as a sport. Sport is a bud-mutation.

 I agree -so what do we call a PT/PT branch, or a Sat/Satsuma branch?

Is Prague Deciduous? 

Perhaps the Poncirus is more vigorous, and that's why PT/PT branches are more common than the reverse?

Have a good day!

ZAP

[Florian]

I have neither had pure poncirus nor satusma branches on my two plants (but I have not had them for as long). I wonder if that was triggered by something in Roberts plant?

[roberto]

Zap, one thing is true: pure RT branches are quite vigorous. It was years ago I had the PT-Branch and even had fruits on it. But These fruits were pure PT. I lost the craft of this PT branch two years ago but there was nothing Special about it.
Florian, no idea what triggers this phenomenon. Maybe simply the fact that PT DNA is there. Like totally green branches on variagated Citrus.