I just completed a force rank of all my citrus and awarded points for flavor, ease/vigor, heat/freeze (extremes) tolerance, production, and consumability (does it get eaten / taken off the counter). I also counted freeze tolerance as related to probability of fruit making it to maturity. The earlier the maturity the better. The larger the fruit the better. The winner and runner ups... Okitsu Wase Satsuma, then Page, Meyer, Persian lime, cocktail, caracara, Newhall (early, big navel), then many others including Austrailian Finger lime ...with 'quats dead last. Eustis Limequat led the quats; + ready in late November. - less freeze tolerant than other quats.

I don't have data yet for 88-2, Lemonade, VanigliaS, Miyagawa, Xie Shan, nor Shiranui.

Let us know what you decide!

Thanks, in general what are your subjective thoughts on Page Mandarin? Is it too close to Satsuma to be worthy of consideration, keeping in mind I currently have 5 varieties of Satsuma

5! Wow. Well, i might be as bad??? In the ground i have 3 okitsu's, 2 DobashiBeni's, and just ex-planted (dug up) one of my 2 Owari's (it's particular location was too exposed to reliably get mature fruit).

Page is a consistent taste winner, and mostly juiced and zested here. Its sweeter with a definite orange-leaning flavor. At 5ft. Tall and on C35, my Napa page took an overnight dip to 16F 4 years ago. It lost about 80% of its leaves while neighboring Eustis and Fukumoto and Meyer suffered major branch death. The okitsus lost a dozen leaves ... kinda had a bad hair day in comparison.

My Page's are ready in early December and i just harvested the remaining several dozen today for juice.... still delish. Like the Satsumas, its very productive.

I hope the info helps... George

Ike, here is my Force Rank sheet... of course it is specific to my growing area and location of the tree within the yard (shade/sun/protection etc). I might try one of the Smith Red's later this week knowing its rather early for it. Its the first year the (now 12 ft tall) tree has produced. ! - - hoping the info helps you choose! - good luck - George

My two suggestions would be Page and Xie Shan. At the various citrus expos that I attend each year, where they hold taste test, Xie Shan has consistently won most of the contest for the best tasting variety. I have, among many other citrus varieties, two Xie Shan trees and one Page.

I have heard lots of good things about Xie Shan, however it is not available here being an ACP/HLB quarantine state with only 2 citrus growing nurseries the choices are limited to the above list. Page though is sounding promising as a potential juicing citrus, I was also considering Amber Sweet, which may have some level of cold hardiness being a hybrid

Thank you for that info silica. I am curious if you have (or anyone out there has) a Miyagawa ...and how the XS might compare?

I recently read an article (not sure exactly which - could have been the CRB Journal?). That article described the subtle differences between multiple satsumas including the Miyagawa, Xie Shan, China S-9, and Okitsu Wase and others. If I recall correctly, the Miyagawa, S-9, and XieS were all pretty much the same as in early maturity - brix-wise - and earlier than the Okitsu Wase. However, the Miyagawa broke color earlier. That is, while the sugar / acid ratios were similar and - early, the Miyagawa had already colored up while the others had not. I do not recall the article addressing flavor / taste.

My take on Satsumas is that it depends on the growing conditions and any evaluation should be done over multiple years. Out of my 6 Satsumas, 3 are mature 15-20+ year old trees and it seems each year a different one will have clearly superior tasting fruit, one is Owari the other two are unknown varieties, perhaps Kimbrough .

Ike, interesting. I too have seen variation over the last 4 years. I cannot be sure if its the weather or a bit of alternate bearing / nutrition influence.

I found one of the articles I was referring to in the Mar-Apr 2013 edition of Citrograph.

you can search for it .....- here is the link to the pdf of the issue.

Fruit quality evaluations of introduced Satsuma selections for California