February fruits of Sacramento Valley

 Many citrus fruits can be harvested this month. I have the following:

Oranges: Washington Navel, Navellina, Cara-Cara, Boukhobza, Sanguinelli, Tarocco, my fake Cara-Cara, Vainiglia Sanguino.

Grapefruit: Cocktail.  The sweetest grapefruit I ever had.

Pomelo: Valentine (came from a friend's tree, but I should have my own shortly).  This is an excellent selection. 

Tangor: Kyomi. Very juicy mandarine type of fruit.  A parent of Sumo / Shiranui / Dekopon

Mandarins: Algerian clementine, Gold Nugget, Tahoe Gold, Page, Tango

Lime: Palestine acidless, Rangpur

Two tropical guava trees are still fruiting: my Brazilian orange seedling and Malaysian Red

Avocado Royal Wright started shedding the fruits after windy days.  I am picking those that have yellow stems. I think they are better than I expected them to be.  I will compare them agains Bacon in a separate post

I collected some white sapote Vernon fruits from a friend's very large tree in South Bay. It might be possible to have them here in the winter too when my trees get more mature.

Below are four pigmented oranges, starting from the upper left clockwise: Vainiglia Sanguino, Sanguinelli, Tarocco, Boukhobza. 

Vainiglia Sanguino is very nicely flavored acidless orange, Sanguinelli has lots of color and flavor, but low on sugar, Tarocco is sweeter than Sanguinelli.  Boukhobza is an excellent blood orange with the sweetness of a Navel orange.

None of these pigmented oranges had dark red outer color. Sanguinelli and Tarocco (right) are below.

And the last but not least, I believe I harvested the last dragon fruit of the season. Sugar Dragon along with the Palestine acidless lime are below.  Pretty good tasting Sugar Dragon fruit for February. And this lime is very unique and pleasant to eat.

Check our sales site if we have the avocado and white sapote cuttings available reallygoodplants.com

My Sumo seedling and Shiranui fruit tasting 2021

 A year ago I wrote about my Sumo seedling and how it compares to actual Shiranui  This year I didn't get to tasting the fruits at the earlier time, and I can not confirm that my seedling is earlier.  It might well be earlier, but I only started tasting the fruits in February.  What is really different is the juice vesicles of my seedling fruits. They are always more firm than the ones from Shiranui fruits. The seedling fruit density is at about Gold Nugget mandarin level.

The Sumo seedling and Shiranui fruits vary in shape, rind thickness and the amount of sugar even when collected from the same tree. In the pictures below, two left fruits are from my seedling. The top left is from a tree grown in Vacaville, the graft was made directly onto a citrus rootstock (C-32 or C-35). Low left fruit is coming from a graft made onto Minneola Tangelo tree.  Two right fruits are from the same tree of Shiranui grown in Isleton, CA.

The best fruit here is my seedling grafted on Minneola Tangelo, bottom left.  It had the most complexity and sugar along with the firmer structure than Shiranui fruits. It is possible that the rootstock alone defines the difference here. In my experience, any citrus grafted onto my old Minneola Tangelo produces excellent fruits. 

A few days later we tasted my seedling fruits again. On the left is my seedling from Vacaville tree, and on the right is from graft onto Minneola. Both fruits were excellent. Complex and sweet in flavor and as dense as the Gold Nugget fruit.

I think the real test would be to graft Shiranui onto my Minneola Tangelo and compare the fruits from the same tree and same location.  I have a feeling that my seedling is different. However, I need to get a good amount of both fruit types from the same tree to figure this out.

January fruits of Sacramento Valley

 Citrus is the king of the winter fruits here. I have a number of earlier posts on various citrus cultivars with their ripening times. Here I have 5 different mandarins, Early Navels, Vainiglia Sanguino acidless oranges, Kyomi tangor, Cocktain grapefruit, and two different kinds of limes.

Besides citrus, I have tropical guava and dragon fruits now. I think it should be possible to have white sapote fruits in January too.  I picked all mine in December, but my trees are young. 

To my surprise, I am still picking dragon fruits and they are ripening just fine. This winter is very mild so far. Below are Sugar Dragon (left) and Halley's Comet.

Other options for January fruits would be very late persimmons and very late kiwi.  I hope to get some of these fruiting in a few years.

November fruits of Sacramento Valley

I am planning to write quick posts here on what I have fruiting every months of the year.

November might be the most productive month here in the Sacramento Valley. 

1. Pomegranate - most if not all cultivars are ready

2. Feijoa - midseason cultivars are dropping fruits

3. Persimmons - mostly just Jiro from the old trees on the farm. From the newer grafts, I just collected the first fruit of an old astringent cultivar I call Watermelon.  A few American persimmons, Early Jewel, Lehman's Delight and Meader

4. Citrus - Early satsumas (Okitsu Wase, Miyagawa, Miho Wase), Rangpur Lime, Thornless Mexican lime

5. Tropical guava - My Brazilian seedling produces plenty of fruit 

6. Kei Apple - The productive "Sweet Female #4" - good amount of fruit into November

7. Che - Oregon Exotics is ripe and the production is good

8. Occasionally I pick dragon fruits. On November 11, I picked "Hardy", and on November 21 "Haley's Comet" and "Vietnamese Giant"

9. Cherimoya Fortuna produced one very nice fruit

10. No avocados on my trees, all finished, but my neighbor's tree is fruiting now.  The cultivar might be Mexicola Grande or another Mexican large fruited cultivar.  I need to graft her wood onto my tree.

Watermelon persimmon below

Haley's Comet and Vietnamese Giant dragon fruits

My neighbor's avocados

The propagation wood for many fruiting trees is usually available during our winter sale at reallygoodplants.com

Early Satsuma mandarins

Okitsu wase satsuma is ready in October, and it is my first mandarin.  It is followed by Miyagawa satsuma, and Miho wase is just starting now.  My Miho wase is grafted onto a Navel orange tree, and the fruits probably would be better if grafted on a regular rootstock or another mandarin.

In the pictures below, left to right are Miho wase, Miyagawa, and Okitsu wase satsumas. 

Okitsu wase is very good starting from October, and it is still the best one out of these three satsumas in November. The outer color of these mandarins are often green and does not reflect the fruit ripeness. 

Shiranui and a Sumo seedling comparison

Here I compare the fruits from my Sumo seedling vs. Shiranui grafts of the wood obtained from CCPP (Citrus Clonal Protection Program)

I grew the Sumo seedling from a seed found in a supermarket fruit in 2014. I grafted the seedling wood onto mature trees in 2015, and the Shiranui wood from CCPP in 2018.

For the second year, they both produced, and they do not seem to be identical.  Most mandarin seedlings are genetically identical to the mother tree. The differences could be due to the:

1. Cultural or environmental conditions, they are from different trees growing in two different locations, 15 mi away
2. The Sumo fruit I bought in 2014 was of a different genetic origin than the wood distributed now by CCPP as Shiranui
3. The seedlings of Shiranui are not necessarily genetically identical to the mother tree.

What is different

My Sumo seedling fruits are significantly earlier than Shiranui.  Its is nice and sweet now right from the tree, but seems to be a bit dry. I should be picking all these in January, and I remember that they were even better back then. Shiranui fruit is not ripe at all. Its pretty sour on February 9 when tasted is right from the tree. In the pictures below, my seedling is on the left.

October mandarins

In October 2019 three varieties were ready, Okitsu Wase Satsuma, Corsica #2 and Miho Wase Satsuma.

Left to right: Okitsu Wase Satsuma, Corsica #2 and Miho Wase Satsuma

My Corsica #2 is grafted onto a Red Grapefruit.  This is the reason for it being dry.  It's still sweet and tastes OK, but dry. This was my third or fourth year tasting Corsica #2 from this graft. My hopes that it will grow out of this problem, and the fruits will become normal fell short.  This graft has to go.  I'll need to re-graft it onto a mandarin or tangelo.

Both Okitsu Wase Satsuma and Miho Wase Satsuma are very good. Miho Wase is sweeter with more intense flavor.