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olympia_gardener

Daisy mandarin

olympia_gardener
11 years ago

Over the weekend, I bought some mandarin oranges from local grocery store called daisy mandarin. Boy, this is one of the sweetest mandarin I have tasted. They are from Aussie and are very large , about 1/2- 3/4 lb each.

I am wondering if I planted the seeds, will the tree produce same quality of fruits?

Comments (8)

  • johnmerr
    11 years ago

    Yes, and no; the Daisy is a cross of 2 California varieties, Fremont and Fortune. I expect that a Daisy mandarin seed would produce a Daisy mandarin tree; but the quality of the fruit would depend a lot on your soil and climate. Australia grows a lot of good mandarins, including the Daisy.
    There are a couple of problems... number one I don't know if you can legally propagate the Daisy now without a licensing agreement from the creator; Australia grows them, but is not yet licensed to propagate them. Second, the variety has a number of problems, such as fruit splitting, alternate bearing, and others; it is not highly recommended for commercial planting. Lastly, if you plant a seed and actually get a Daisy, it will be years before you will get any fruit; and the tree will likely be thorny.
    Were I you, and I wanted to plant a mandarin, I would order a Pixie from a reputable nursery and have a really quality fruit; but that is just MHO.

  • blazeaglory
    11 years ago

    I think from seed it could also turn out to be one of the original "parent" crossbreeds and become a single pure breed again. OR be sprouted as a cross breed and considered a "Daisy" but could have much different characteristics of the Daisy or be spot on or better but still a "Daisy". But, If Im not mistaken like I said earlier in this post, it could also sprout as an exact "copy" of one of its parents minus either one of the parents and ONLY be a one strain purebreed (make sense lol) and not considered a crossbreed anymore. But Im a little unsure about that so Im hoping someone could correct me or not? Either way I think to really know for sure is to get real scientific on it and do tests and stuff. I think our taste buds can only tell us if its good or not and if we like it:-)

  • johnmerr
    11 years ago

    This is not a hybrid; it is a crossbreed; i.e. a cross between two mandarins. Hybrids tend to be sterile, if not diploid; but crossbreeds tend to be fertile. Ergo, I would seriously doubt that planting a seed from a Daisy would give you one of the parents. The seed contains a mix of the genetics of both parents; but is its own entity; and as most citrus are true to seed, I see no reason this one would not be. That brings me back to my original caveats... thorniness, problems with the variety, time to make fruit; and lastly, I don't see any rush in the industry to plant Daisy variety; there are a number that are better. At my lemon farm, in my variety citrus block, I have Pixie mandarins plus 2 heirloom mandarins that come from trees more than 50 years old... no one knows what variety they are; but everyone loves them.

  • blazeaglory
    11 years ago

    So a hybrid would be a fruit/seed produced from one variety pollinated by another? And a crossbreed would be a genetic cross between two different varieties done in a lab or something? I think that is where I was confused.

    So a "hybrid" seed would possibly produce parent seeds/trees? Or am I still way off? I could of swore I read something like this somewhere...lol

  • johnmerr
    11 years ago

    For simplicity... a hybrid is like a cross between a horse and a donkey (a mule); or as in Foster Farms chickens between a big black rooster and a small round red hen; the result is a white chicken of incredible value; but if you hatch the egg of that white chicken, you will not get a Foster Farms chicken... it is a crapshoot of what you might get. A crossbreed is like a Hereford cow crossed with a Holstein cow; the result is a white faced black animal... but if you mate together two of them, you will get the same white-faced black offspring. For plant people maybe that doesn't make sense, but it is basic Mendelian genetics.

    A lot of commercial seeds are hybrids, wheat, rice, corn, tomatoes, etc... you cannot plant the seeds of the fruit and get the same plant.

  • olympia_gardener
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    John, the size and taste of this fruit caught my attention and make me thinking grow one just for fun.

    I am learning something new here. Cross breed and hybrid are not the same thing! I thought they are all result of genetic mix , selection in purpose. Hybrid sweet corn is very common. I thought it is, for expamle, white corn pollinated with yellow corn resulted a mixed white and yellow corn as offspring ( I am simplify the example here). But it is still pollinate between corns, not corn and not-corn, like horse and donkey. Am I correct, if pollinate corn and something other than corn, the offspring will be the cross breed?

  • johnmerr
    11 years ago

    Truth is, I am at the outer edges of what I KNOW, or once learned; but I am way outside my ability to explain it.

    Unlike Stephen Hawking who, in A Brief History of Time, is soooo smart, he can explain incredibly complex things so that ordinary people get it.

    Don't worry about it; and if you want to plant the seed, do it; it's all fun.

  • blazeaglory
    11 years ago

    I get what your saying. I had it backwards (Hybrids vs. Crossbreed). It makes more sense now that I look at it the other way.