Seedless kishu, itsvery, very good, what nursery did it come from?

I know, probably not very healthful but I would take them both ;)

Interesting! I hadn't thought of Kishu. I don't think I've ever seen that labeled as a Satsuma... but if HD just didn't have a picture tag I could see someone slap-on something close.

I've been looking for a Kishu for a while now too! Are you fairly certain on SKS = Seedless Kishu?? Or can anybody concur? (That certainly makes sense to me, probably better than what I was guessing at...)

I was going to pass on it if it was just another sub-variety, Okitsu seemed to be one of the best so I was happy with just that. If that's a Kishu tree however I'm gonna have to get it.

Im going back today to probably grab them. I'll try and see if anybody there knows the supplier nursery, I wouldn't hold my breathe though...

Huzzaaaah!LOL

Thanks for the help all! Just for posterity some pictures...

Obviously, the ones in the back. What- Can't you tell?

Okitsu Satsuma Mandarin:

Now positively identified, Seedless Kishu Mandarin:

Now that I have mine, I don't mind saying, if anyone in Phoenix area happens upon this thread in the next few days it's the HD at Dobson & 202. Prolly wanna move quick though they only had 4 Kishu's (...now 3) and maybe 8 Okitsu's (...now 7)

:)

Congratulations on your new trees! :)

I have been looking at the last 6 trees at HD and waiting for them to go on sale. they are still $39.99 ea currently but I know they will drop at some point, they have two minnelola's, one oro blanco, one bearss and two of the Okitsu's. I'd like to get the Okitsu as it's the only one I don't already have but wasn't sure since I hadn't heard much about them. after some quick googling I am tempted just to run back a buy it regardless of a sale but I don't "need" the tree. I am trying to be good and not add any unnecessary trees but sale pricing would make it an easier pill to swallow....Hmmm I guess we will see how strong my resolve is. I wonder when they will drop the prices here....

I was waiting for my HD to drop the price,too. some plants come from a special vendor and they never get reduced. Like the Bonnie veggies I know are this way. I ended up using my garden club coupon to bring the price down.

I'm also bummed because costco.com had some, and they never dropped in price, and now they're gone.

My local nursery had some and guess what? Months and months of sitting there and they are also not reducing them :(

At least you have them available. No store in my area has any at all. Neither HD nor lowes or walmart. Seems they missed stocking Michigan all together this year.

I got a bearss from home depot for 50% off last year and I think that has tainted me, but if I remember correctly I got it pretty late like October/November. $39.99 is a good price for local citrus and I get a much larger tree without having to pay shipping or wait but now its a white whale and i'm hunting for the better deal. HD was weird this year they had some citrus, like 8 altogether; meyers, bearss and Oro blanco in the spring followed by 40 something rooted navel cuttings shortly after then nothing until last week. I don't know who does the stocking for them but it was really weird to have no citrus in the summer but in the spring and fall instead. We are going to see how strong my resolve is but for now I've decided to check in once a week and monitor them, if they sell then its not meant to be.

I can't help on the pricing other than maybe mention I paid $28 for each of mine there. (Don't think that was a sale price.)

As far as Okitsu's though, I'm happy to brain dump what I've accrued since I recently began scouring Google pretty hard here. Okitsu is very similar to Owari which is sorta the de facto standard Satsuma. They are same ripening season (Nov.), same fruit size, same zipper peel skin, same seed count (technically 0-4 seeds per fruit average, which makes both effectively seedless), nearby pollinators don't change the seedy-ness, and they are similar in flavor. Pretty much "Delicious" by all accounts. Though I found one mention of Okitsu being slightly sweeter than Owari. They grow "up"-ish with whippy branches that tend to bow over from weight of the fruit. They both are notoriously cold tolerant for a citrus, but that's more once established a year or two. Young plants are vulnerable. Desert climate is less their thing, but from what I can tell they will still grow. ( I might need to baby mine a bit, but I'm ok with that.)

Now a warning, I did see one source state that Satsuma was not compatible long term on citrange rootstock. It didn't specify which Satsuma so Okitsu may or may not apply. Im also not sure if they actually meant purebred citrange or were including all half bred rootstocks too. (So that would be Carrizo/Troyer, C35, C32, and probably a slew of others I don't know about) The complaint was that the rootstock and scion grew unevenly causing "benching". I'm not sure how true that info is, since I've seen lots of places sell Satsuma's on citrange based rootstock and I've also seen a few research papers listing Satsuma on Carrizo and don't remember those papers mentioning anything about incompatibility. Might just keep an eye on the graft, as I plan to myself. (I'm already cautious about Carrizo and C35 both as they seem to have a dodgey reputation with lots of conflicting info as far as suitability in my Phoenix soil, so I'm rolling the dice myself on these two as sort of an experiment and find out what's what.)

Sorry if you knew all that already but even if you did, that info was splattered pretty well all over the Internet and I had to collect it. Hopefully all that being in one place might help others.

PS

I am a HIGHLY unreliable source of information, but I Google real good. LOL!

boondock, my okitsu's mature about 3 weeks earlier than Owari. That said, all 8 of my satsumas are still relatively young at 3-5 years (in the ground). I do not believe they have settled down yet and so the maturity may adjust....

All of my satsumas grow slowly.

Boondock, THANK YOU! it't time consuming to track that info down and on a less popular variety it feels like your pulling your hair out trying to find anything out about it. I am thinking this would be a good candidate for in ground planting for me with winter protection for the first few years. I may just have to go get it after all. We shall see how I feel about it later in the week.

Good to know molewacker! Yeah my info was based on a chart I found that was showing the same 3-month window for both. I'll take real data over estimates any day!