I have no idea, can you show the fruit cut in half, Steve?

What is the most common variety of Bitter/Sour Orange sold in US markets?

I see them all the time in Hispanic or Asian markets. Did not realize there were different varieties.

I have at least a half dozen small trees started from their seeds (of which they have many! They are vigorous in growth.

I don’t know for sure, but it looks to me like the ones we used for marinading that they sold in Miami...I suspect Seville.

My friend bought it in the international market section of

Jungle Jim's

Steve

Very seedy, seedlings can be used as a rootstock!

Rootstock! That is why I asked my fiend to buy it for me. My friend lives a mile from me but she still drives 60 miles to go to the church she has been going to for 64 years. Jungle Jim's is just down the street and she does her weekly shopping on her way home. I only thought of this because of a post on one of the recent threads talked about Seville seedlings. I also read that Marumi kumquats on sour orange roots can go down 0-F with leaf loss but no twig die back. I have located a Marumi on citramello roots in Germany but the shipping by boat would take to long and by plane at 40,000 feet would freeze kill it. Meiwa kumquats are near impossible to grow because every insect attack sets them back 2- 4 years. But a Fukushu on sour orange would make for a much less sour fleshed Fukushu.

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Steve, I am planning to grow some mandarin seedlings, choose a vigorous one and graft Meiwa on it for sweet tasting fruit.

I've seen a similar looking fruit at Indian grocery stores as well. Did you taste it?

Just went out and eat it. Quite sour but like a Meyer, about as sweet as a Meyer, and very seed. Thank god. I would not have been happy if I got the worlds first seedless Seville.

Steve

Yeah Steve, that looks just like a seville. Great you got so many seeds!

I grew an in ground Seville Sour orange tree from seed. The seed was planted on August 17, 2006, and fruited for the first time last year (2016). I did not use any of the few fruit that set last year, except for a taste.. This year is the tree's second fruiting, with about two dozen nice size oranges on it, enough to make marmalade. Two dozed Sour Orange fruits should also give over 80+- seeds.

sunshine

I would not use a mandarin seeding for rootstock Sweet fruited rootstock can have the opposite affect on the scion. I have read that grapefruit seedling are much better for meiwa

My research for meiwa rootstock indicate that Poncirus Trifoliata, Rubidux, Rusk, Flying dragon, and KxR in gthat order are the best for harddiness and 'BRIX' fruit quality.

My first sour orange seedling to develop a root.

The sour orange seed/root

Heat source over 23 watt CFL

container with root down and top of seed under 1/3 inch dirt

Heat ventilation hole just above Daisy

Root pot inside of heat collection chamber

Above unit goes over the hole in the bucket light.

Steve

One seeding came up.

Only seed with root or shoot.Half inch root showing to protect fresh green stem from damp off.On shelf in quad glass window.Shelf is in air at room tenperature.All my windows have a center plant shelf that sits in air at room temperature.

Steve

That’s great Steve!! You’ll have rootstock in no time!

PLU codes are 4 numbers; 446 is not one. Check the label again. For example, Meyer lemon is 3626.

Thanks John. I looked all over for the 4 number. There really wasn't one. Misprint on their part or they were using their own in store tracking system. There is no orange that had a PLU with the 446 in it either starting with "446?" or ending with "?446". There was only one sticker on the orange. I hope it is a Seville. It is ahead of any other rootstock for soggy soil and higher Brix. I would imagine Tristeza is not here in Cincinnati. The sour orange will go in ground.. With my incredibly outstanding citrus grafting success rate of 1.5% it might not mater what I have here.

Steve

seedling sour orange from fruit compared to it's 32 once cup.

Since the stem is still green and susceptible to damp off I have left 3/4 inch of root above the soil line I used a mixture of garden dirt and compost since it is going in ground permanently next spring after a winter in a bucket light to get a large tree really quickly.

Steve

Seville orange is normally 3109. Those seeds do not look like the Seville seeds I just brought from Seville; and I am not aware that Guatemala exports, or even has Seville oranges. Aside from that one of the most beautiful Seville oranges I have ever seen yielded only 20 seeds. BTW my Seville seeds have not yet germinated after one month in warm planting medium

It took a long time so I dug them up and removed the skins.

Here is a photo of a Seville orange, picked from a tree in Seville.

1. How did Spain get by the Tristeza citrus virus.
2. Is there any reason for me to think that what I got would work poorly as a rootstock.

The original pics are not sour (Seville) orange. Furthermore I have heard of nobody who can eat a slice of raw sour orange not to mention a whole fruit. Too bitter for that. Many years ago I once bit into one by mistake, thought it was sweet orange... I still remember the feeling. My mouth was numb for an hour.

There's a funny story from the time of the German Nazi occupation back in WWII. When they first entered Athens it was April and all the decorative street SO trees where still full of fruit. The joke is about the look on their faces when they raided the trees thinking they were sweet orange..

Spain does not get by the tristeza virus. In addition, they have exported it to us... Sour orange trees seem to do OK with the virus... It is the scions that suffer.

Steve,

This is so common in Latin or other 3rd world local markets... what you have is likely smuggled from Mexico or Belize, falsely labelled to hope it can get past local vigilance... so you really have no idea what it is that you have. FYI, I don't believe Guatemala exports ANY oranges.

Steve,

I suspect Spain avoided CTV by changing rootstocks; but I don't know that for sure. I like the Seville seedlings mostly as a novelty; but to my knowledge the Seville seedlings will be susceptible to CTV

Hey Steve,

I can’t answer #2 but for question #1 the Seville orange is grown for the most part as a landscape / street tree or as a patio / courtyard ornamental especially in the southern regions of Andalusia and Valencia where they were brought by the Moors. They likely avoided tristeza because the trees aren’t near intensive plots used for agriculture and instead planted here and there. If I had to guess, I would wager that they don’t use CTV susceptible rootstocks for their lemon, mandarin, and sweet orange farms or they just don’t have tristeza.

They’re probably also lucky in that CTV comes from from Asia, and the Mediterranean had already been growing citrus for generations by the time CTV became a problem - they already had great lemon (verna, fino) / orange (Valencia, Sanguinelli), and clementine varieties and didn’t need to import new ones from Japan or China.

Spain produces SO commercially and exports much of it to Britain for English 'Orange' Marmalade. France grows sour orange commercially mainly for the perfume industry.

To my knowledge Spain 'imported' tristeza from Latin America. They 'exported' it to us in the early '00s through infected propagation material (thanks to the non-existent intra EU controls..).

As I said, SO TREES (full trees) are tolerant of CTV. So are lemons on SO. The problem lies with oranges, mandarins and grapefruit on SO which are highly susceptible. Don't ask me why.

SO is definitely not tolerant of CTV; tristeza is more or less the only reason SO isn't used as a rootstock throughout the US and especially in Texas.

Pac,

The Seville sour orange is NOT the same as the California or common sour orange of the US. There are many varieties of sour or bitter orange, the best known being the Seville and the Bergamot, both owing their fame to the British, the first for marmalade; and the second for Earl Grey tea.

Hi John,

No disrespect intended, but my understanding is that the Seville is synonymous with the standard sour used for rootstock. Not every sour orange is a Seville, but Seville and its seedlings are the standard fruiting and rootstock variety. The US strains arrived in Florida with the Spanish colonists, who were predominantly from Andalusia and other poorer regions of Spain, and are descended from the Seville. They’re probably not all genetically identical, but neither are the sour oranges planted as street trees throughout Spain. I’ve also traveled to southern Spain numerous times and they don’t refer to it as el Sevillano, it’s simply la agria or naranja agria there, at least in Andalusia where I’ve spent most of my time.

http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/seville.html

http://citruspages.free.fr/souroranges.html#sevillano

I take my knowledge from The Citrus Industry text, especially the origins, history, and characteristics. Add to that my personal experiences in Spain, Asia, California, and Latin America. The point is that while I am quite sure that the Sevillano is not resistant to CTV, I am not so sure about other varieties of SO. As an illustration, in Southern Mexico they grow a mango called Ataulfo. 3-400 years ago it was brought by the Spanish from the Philippines (the Carabao mango); it is similar today; but it is NOT a Carabao or Philippine mango; and every time they try to sell it as such, they get sued and they lose.

Sour Orange or Bitter Orange or Seville Orange is Citrus x aurantium (subsp. amara according to some, amara meaning bitter). They are the same citrus and the extent to which the different varieties may differ is similar to the difference between Washington and Valencia sweet oranges for example. Different cultivars of course exist but they are the same citrus tree. All of them produce bitter-sour round fruit, with more or less coarse rind which becomes deep orange in maturity (at least when grown in a med type climate). and pale yellow--greenish pulp. The leaves have a pronounced elongated petiole and the tree usually carries some long thorns on the more vigorous shoots. Bitterness is extremely pronounced so the name 'sour orange' is kind of a misnomer. Yes they are sour but most of all they are bitter. The fruit is inedible when raw regardless of the level of maturity. They have a distinctive perfume both in the rind and in the leaves which cannot be confused for other citrus. This is what has been used for rootstock for centuries and for English 'Orange' Marmalade.

I don't know what might be called sour orange in the Americas but if it is not what I have described it is not Sour Orange. Not every sour tasting 'orange' is a Sour Orange.

The name 'Seville Orange' is of course an old name the English importers gave it a long time ago and may now be a legally protected name. But this is just a commercial issue. In Greek the name for the tree 'nerantzia' has the same roots as naranja and aurantium. The trees were introduced in the Med region before sweet orange was.

Bergamot is really a different citrus, most probably a cross between SO and a limetta (which gave it its distinctive flavour). In the East Med we grow sour limettas which carry the same perfume as Bergamot orange but look like lemons or citron.

Well, Nik,

I guess we are just going to have to accept that you are a lot smarter than the rest of us; and get on with our lives; but if you are trying to tell us that a Seville orange and a Bergamot are the same, we may just have to assume that you were born blind. So, what I am saying is, I would like to agree with you... but then we would BOTH be wrong

one seed had twins

'if you are trying to tell us that a Seville orange and a Bergamot are the same, we may just have to assume that you were born blind'

English is not my mother tongue but I'm pretty sure that what I have written above (i.e. 'Bergamot is really a different citrus, most probably a cross between SO and a limetta (which gave it its distinctive flavour)) is not what you are alluding to. Maybe you have had too much exposure to meyercello fumes under the canopy of your secret rooftop urban jungle?

So Can any one tell me what kind of sour orange this is.

Pac,

The reason the people in Seville don't call them Sevillano is the same reason people in Switzerland don't call their cheese Swiss cheese; it is just cheese. Similarly, what the world calls Brown Swiss cows, are just Brown cows in Switzerland. I have Italian cypress trees in my garden; the Italians call them skyrocket.

Steve,

I guess the answer is NO. The Seville orange is distinctive in peel and appearance; the rest mostly look the same.

What do they call Brazil nuts in Brazil? What do they call Russian dressing in Russia? What do they call French dressing in France? What do they call a Moscow mule in Moscow? What do they call Moscow in Moscow? What do they call Russia in Russia? What do they call Germany in Germany?

Vlad,

castanhas-do-pará (chestnuts from Para) is what they call Brazil nuts in Brazil.

French and Russian dressings, like the Moscow mule are all American creations.