Poncirus+

[till]

Hello,

I am longing for Poncirus+!  Can somebody send me budwood and / or fresh pollen? I am from Germany. I'd like to undertake some crossbreeding with it. And I just what to test the taste.

Regards,

Till

[zap]

Jan 13, 2020 3:11:33 GMT -5 till said:

I am longing for Poncirus+!

Till

I read somewhere that there is a Japanese Germplasm Repository that has several Var's of poncirus Trifoliata. Some without bitter taste, and other traits. But that was before GIGABYTE decided to update my P.C. All gone  """(((poof)))""""

Ask around, there is PT+, and versions of Hardy Lemon, Swamp Lemon, Kulu lemon being grown In Europe. Hardy lemon, and Kulu lemon, are hybrids as far as I know, and too variable for predictable Hybrid crosses.  Most of the fruit tastes Petrol-bitter or lemony-grapefruit.

You might try tropicalfruitforum.com I don't know if you seek, Cold tolerance, or disease resistance. P.T. has both!

[brian]

What is Poncirus+? I can't find anything with a search engine, just a comment from Ilya on the other forum

"There exist "edible" poncirus clones like Swamp Lemon and Poncirus+ that could be better starting points at your pop1 level to produce further F1 populations."

[kumin]

Poncirus+ is a Poncirus variant discovered in Eastern Europe. It's juice lacks the bitter resin found in standard Poncirus. The juice color is grapefruit juice-like in appearance, with a slight whitish cast, rather than the expected yellow/greenish found in standard Poncirus.

It's sought after as a breeding parent in hopes of obtaining Poncirus hybrids with improved flavors.

This cultivar is said to be zygotic and is present in both Eastern and Western Europe.

[zap]

Jan 14, 2020 11:46:54 GMT -5 brian said:

What is Poncirus+? I can't find anything

Try this link.  tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=30431.msg338818#msg338818

It will probably just raise more questions for you.   I believe PT+ will be more useful than any swamp lemon for breeding!  Swamp lemons appear to merely  be "Hardy Lemon's."   Hardy Lemon's being hybrids between P.Trifoliata & different lemon vars.

I used to pick hardy lemons for the little old ladies down my street.   Three leaves, large fruit, more flavor than a true lemon, different aroma, variable aftertaste.    -Not Meyer-lemon flavored.    Clem x tri x clem is very close to the flavor - but not lemony.

When they say: "all Hardy lemons are nasty", or All swamp lemons are nasty" don't believe them.  Just keep searching, the scion may still be out there.

[till]

Thank you for your answers. Then I just need somebody who would send me budwood.

I have tasted several Poncirus types. The bitterness seems not to be that common as internet comments suggest. I also see no clear link between the resin in the fruit and bitter taste. All Poncirus types that I have tested had resin in their fruits but not all were bitter - at least to my tongue. All tasted more or less nasty. But I would not call that taste bitter.

By the way: The resin can easily be removed from the juice. Just let it stand in an open glas over night. The next morning the resin will be sunken to the bottom of the glas and the tan flavor (some call it "kerosine" flavour) of the juice has almost or totally disappeared. You can then make the best citrus lemonade ever with an rich orange taste - if you have Poncirus fruits that are not exceptionally nasty. But even those make acceptable lemonade. Lemonade from bitter fruits will be bitter. But those of us who like Grapefruits will enjoy it.

Still, Poncirus without that resin right from the beginning would be great!

[brian]

At some point you have to ask yourself: “should I just got to the grocery store and buy a bag of lemons?”

I think when you are overnight draining resin from trifoliate orange that point has been reached

[ilya11]

Brian, this point can be reached much earlier, it depends of what you are looking for in citrus gardening

For me, the question is more like- Is it possible to improve a  pure Poncirus trifoliata to  produce a useful, edible  fruit? 

It has been grown for centuries in China, Korea and Japan but mostly for decorative and medicinal applications.

As far as I know its fruits has been never considered as edible.

Interestingly, even  its hybrids with common citruses were produced only very recently.

[brian]

Oh absolutely, I'm mostly joking

I love the idea of breeding new varieties. I would love to do it myself but I would need a much bigger greenhouse!

[till]

I have build now a greenhouse 5,5m x 4,3m. And my optimism has become greater. :-)
But yes, what a citrus hobbyist in Germany can do is far from economic. Citrus fruits are just too sheap. And even if they were more expensive we would not need them besides cherries, appels, pears, plums and plenty of good tasting other fruits that are fully hardy not only in our climate but even in central Russia. Citrus plants are just a hobby. But they are unique enough that - hmm! - it would be so great to grow them also in our gardens.
And all effort in breading new stuff may not be totally in vain. How many nice types of appels, wine, pear and plum are grown today even in Sibiria and none of them existed 100 years ago. And then chance may help. One of my hobbys is edible mountain ashs. Mountain ash has been eaten for thousends of year although they have a really horrible bitter taste. Thousends of years no progress because there where probably no real interest in improving them. But in the 19th century some scientific interest in Rowan arose. And now I have some Rowns even in my garden that are pretty tasty, really good, not bitter at all and even reasonable sweet. The best was a chance seedling from Russia found in the wild. Others where bread by way of remote hybridisation or by cross breeding the better tasting Rowans. Thousend of years no progress but in about 100 years such a great step forward!
Perhaps Poncirus tastes just as bad as it does today because nobody has tried certain things until recently (at the beginning of the last century). I mean it is obvious. We know when the first citranges appeared: Not before people wanted them to exist! So in my opinion, 1000 years of Poncirus cultivation tells nothing abouts the real potential of Poncirus. It is just a matter of what we - unnecessarily enough - want to exist.

I must just try it.

[kiwicatherinejemma]

Several folks have made reference to a greater amount of plant breeding and deliberate hybridisation which has happened, especially regarding edible plants, in the last 100 years.

Something which I know has been done with regard to various Palm Trees and Cycad species, especially those that have male and female flowers, or cones, on separate plants, is that pollen can survive being frozen and used months or years later.  Obviously this has only occurred since reliable deep freeze refrigeration (minus 18 Celsius) has been available... in the last 50 to 100 years for the average domestic family home. 

In some cases, closely related species of plants, growing near each other, NEVER hybridised  naturally because they flowered at different times.  Storing (male) pollen in the freezer of one variety, has meant that humans can therefore do cross pollination (with a different but related variety) that would not normally occur in nature (because one plant flowers in Spring and the other flowers in Autumn, for example). 


Although I have not heard of this happening specifically with Citrus and Poncirus varieties, given that  we known they can cross pollinate and give hybrids with characteristics intermediate of both parents, suggest this may be worth a try, especially for home gardeners or other experimental growers with greenhouses in Europe etc.


Come on folks, let's get into this and see what amazing and useful Citrus/Poncirus hybrids we can come up with in the next hundred years.


And we haven't even mentioned  known examples of Plant Chimaera !  The "Bizarro" Orange has been grown since occurring in Italy by accident about 400 years ago.  Very very very occasionally, a grafted Citrus tree, will send up a bud from right on the boundary of the established graft union.  The resultant growth can under those circumstances therefore include DNA material from 2 different plants combined and growing as one plant but with 2 different DNAs.


The academic text book "Principles and Practices of Plant Propagation", By Hartmann, Kester and Davies, has a description and photos of several plant chimaera known to exist. 

[ilya11]

Yes, these two points are already being discussed  by this community:

tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=30756.msg341150#msg341150

citrusgrowersv2.proboards.com/thread/521/prague-chimera

[zap]

Sept 6, 2020 3:33:51 GMT -5 kiwicatherinejemma said:

 pollen ... Citrus/Poncirus hybrids ... we have known  Chimaera

Keep reading.
Many plant breeders do not share their knowledge -or germplasm freely...
Perhaps a humble approach would help you learn how to apply the terminology you have shared...
Please keep that enthusiasm!

[Sylvain]

> include DNA material from 2 different plants combined
Chimeras are not a mix at the scale of DNA but at the scale of cells.

[till]

I usually use dried and frozen pollen that is about a year old. It works! And it is almost the only way for me to produce promising hybrids.