Good to know. I have a Bloomsweet on it's way. I'd really like to know what, exactly, the Bloomsweet is. UCR doesn't have it listed on their Citrus Variety collection, but I think perhaps it is really a Kinkoji unshiu mandarin hybrid. Sounds pretty good, and fun to have something really unique.

Patty S.

Patty:

I have two Goldens. And a Bloomsweet. I grafted one of the Goldens onto a seedling that I grew from "Swingle" seed from Treesearch Farms. The tree was identified as Swingle but may be Citrus 4475, I'm not sure. Anyway, Golden budwood for that tree came from the Texas A&M Budwood Program and it is the better of my two. The tree is about 12 ft from the S. side of my garage and gets really hot in summer. The second Golden was grown by John Panzarella before the Texas Budwood Program started and grafted onto feral trifoliate from his farm north of Houston. That tree gets less sun and is in a cooler location.

My Bloomsweet was grown by Hines Nursery at Fulshire, TX. It is on Rubidoux trifoliate. It is inferior to most other Bloomsweets I have tasted, not sweet and not juicy. I think Hines' budline is at fault. But the Rubidoux is not very well suited to my soil. I have begun grafting branches of this tree into more Goldens and standard Ponkan. Goldens grafted on this tree are juicy. The Ponkans are juicy but a a little less flavored than my other Ponkan. Bottom line here, rootstock, budline, and soil and shade play into wheather your trees are going to give top quality fruit. But you know that, just reminding you.

I know of several seedling Bloomsweets that are much sweeter than mine. I have also heard Bloomsweet is a Kinkoji but that it is pumelo x GF. They were brought to Texas by Japanese farmers in the early 1900's. They setteled near Friendswood. Interestingly, one of the descendants of these settelers is now one of the few commercial growers of Goldens 300 miles to the south near Mission, Tx.

I love good Goldens. I think most people are waiting to eat them when they turn fully yellow, which is way late. They are ripe when half green and yellow mixed. About 3 to 5 weeks after Chandler ripens is a time to sample here (before Thanksgiving). I don't understand the lack of flavor rap. They were described as 35% mandarin and 65% GF by botanist Dr. Stewart Nagle. It was discovered as a chance seedling at Monte Alto, Tx. It is not good to peel and eat by sections since it is so soft inside. Get a GF spoon and flick out the many seeds. The fruit are large and easy to juice. The blossoms have the most pleasant fragrance of any I grow, very complex and no yuk component that some strong blossoms have. They are not really sweet, but no GF is actually sweet.

Well, maybe the Cocktail is. My younger son was taking John's grafting class class this past Sunday and came back with a glowing description of it. And he does not like GF.

I hope you enjoy your trees Patty. My regards from Gulf Coast.

Larry

Thanks so much for all this great info, Larry, very helpful! I know both of these varieties are really Gulf coast citrus, and definitely favs of folks in Texas. We'll see how my Bloomsweet does for me, and I have some seeds from a Golden, so I'll see if I can get the propagated, then grafted to the most likely rootstock. Usually we use trifoliate here, but when I get to that point, I'll repost and see what you and others think. I may try two or three different rootstocks and see which trees produce the best fruit in my area. And yes, that's the story about Bloomsweets here in Calif. - that they really are a Kinkoji. So, we'll just have to see! It may be that I'm just not hot enough here to grow either well. We don't get the long, prolonged heat that folks do in Texas, or in our inland areas of S. Calif. Which is why true grapefruits struggle here. We really can only grow one grapefruit well here, and that's the Rio Red. All my other grapefruits are grapefruit hybrids (Oro Blanco, Melgold), or pummelo hybrids (Cocktail, Valentine).

Patty S.

Patty:

I am now beginning to think Golden is more heat loving than I did previously. Both kingwood, and MrTexas live in the piney woods part of Texas where tall forests and layers of understory keep the heat down considerably from temps on my side of Houston.

You may want to try a couple other GF with less heat requirement than Rio Red. These are Henderson and Ray Ruby. Henderson has a clouded origin. Some say it was developed near Houston. Ray Ruby was found in an grove of Ruby Reds in the Rio Grande Valley. Many claim Henderson and Ray Ruby are sweeter than Rio Red if grown near Houston. All three were developed from Ruby Red. But you may have enough sunshine to make Rio Red edge them out. According to Dr. Nagle Henderson is supposed to be the best one grown from seed in the Houston area.

If you try to grow Golden from seed, I can tell you I have sprouted many, many and the polyembryonic seeds are about 35%. Polyembryonics are supposed to come true. However, I once sprouted some Rio Reds in paper towels and planted one with two embryos and it turned out to be a huge, bitter, and sour white GF which fruited at six years.

On the Bloomsweet, to me they seem more like a pomelo than mandarin hybrid. The vesicles inside are crunchy like a pomelo, its taste is more like a white pomelo than a GF. Very low in bitterness.

Excellent advice, Larry, thanks again! Haven't seen either the Henderson or the Ray Ruby in California, but I'll keep looking. the interesting thing about a polyembryonic seed: Since it is "poly" embryonic, one or two of those embryos will be clones, but the other may be nuclear, and produce whatever the pollen cross was. So, when you sprout a polyembryonic seed, you should watch the seedlings. Pull the seedling that looks different, and keep the ones that look the same if you get more than two. If not, it's a gamble to figure out which one is the clone, and thus a true copy, and which one is the pollinated hybrid. Sometimes the hybrid can be great, other times, and more often, you'll get something sub-standard. And that's what everyone has told me about the Bloomsweet, too, Larry. So, I think I will like it since I really like pummelos :-) I much prefer my Cocktail over all my grapefruits, grapefruit hybrids and pummelo hybrids, with Oro Blanco right behind it. I haven't had my Melogold yet, so that may be up there with the Oro Blanco, too.

Patty S.

Oh boy, I need two cups of coffee in the morning before I post. And, before Dr. Manners comes in and corrects my mistakes! You'd think I'd know this being a nurse, and a baby nurse :-) Okay, let's do this, again. The NUCLEAR embryos are what are derived from maternal nucellus surrounding the developing zygotic embryo. It's the zygotic embryo that is the cross-pollinated embryo, which is what most of us think of as a "seed" or zygote - something created from two parents. In this case, from the ova of the tree the fruit was borne upon, and the pollen from some other tree creating the fruit and seeds therein. What most citrus, and other plants have the ability to do, which I find very fascinating, is create a clone of themselves, just from the maternal tissues of the nucleus of the embryo. So, that's what makes most citrus come "true to seed", but the trick is figuring out which of the seedlings is a nuclear (clone) seedling, and which is the hybrid (cross-pollinated) seedling.

Okay, not that anyone was up for Citrus Sex Ed 101, but there you have it. Had to get the record straight. Think this has something to do with being left-handed and dyslexic. I routinely reverse things, especially when I'm tired. This must be what accounts for left-handed people having a shorter life-span, lol!!

Patty S.

You lost me right after you said....baby nurse
BTW why 2 cups of coffee, we are citrus lovers, why not 2 cups of citrus juice?

I was at a local flea market in the RGV when I saw that orange looking grapefruit.

Being a citrus fool, I had to try it.

Very mushing, so hard to peel

I just used a knife to cut into 4 sections as I do when
in a rush to eat an orange or grapefruit

It had a taste of an orange with grapefruit.. sweet
I had to buy more, I ended buying 3 large bags.
I love the taste, sweet and juicy.

Different taste from the rio reds.

Bad thing is hard to peel since it is mushy inside
and
too many seeds.
The seller could not tell me the name of it
So do not know what it is called, golden, bloomsweet, etc

At a different flea market, Marcos, grafts/plants/sells the grafted citrus trees for 10 bucks.
He buys scion at the TAM citrus place there in the RGV

He will have some to sell in December or so
He sells all kinds/types of citrus trees
For 10 bucks each, I feel I cannot go wrong,

Note color of fruit, golden ie orange not yellow.

This post was edited by myardor on Tue, May 28, 13 at 21:21

Here's my little Bloomsweet plant that survived outside over the winter under a cover in Olympia, WA. You have no idea how far north that is, pull out a map.

It was up against the south-facing side of the house in a warm spot, and it was a colder winter than usual, with 16 inches of snow which is unusual here, only happens about once in a decade. Climate zone 8a here but long winters because of the latitude.

I had a Satsuma that was also covered, and was a little bit bigger, but it died. This seems to prove that Bloomsweet may be slightly cold hardier than Satsuma.

But the Bloomsweet only barely survived, suffered severe damage to the trunk, and did not begin leafing out until the very last days of May. However, amazing it does seem to have held on to a few of the leaves from last year, and even though these leaves do not look like a healthy green, they do seem to be slowly greening up more now and look like they may still be functional.

It was covered with a special clear plant cover that had a breathable fabric mesh on the top.

I've never personally tasted the fruits but they're supposed to be somewhere in between an orange and a grapefruit or pomelo but kind of bland, not the most juicy, and seedy. Not the highest fruit quality, at least compared to normal commercial varieties in the supermarket.