Purpose: The purpose of the Citrus Hardiness Demonstration is to develop a table of the most cold hardy satsumas for Fort Bend County.

Objectives:

1. Plant and maintain twelve varieties of common satsumas
2. Gather data after each winter as to performance of each variety
3. Use gathered data to educate Fort Bend residents on successful varieties

This process began in 2013. Flying Dragon (dwarf) rootstock seedlings were planted in 2014. They were allowed to grow out for two years. Budwood of twelve Satsuma varieties was chosen and grafted to the rootstock in 2016 and 2017. The winter of 2017 killed several grafts necessitating the re-grafting in 2018.

The orchard is growing well. The target date for gathering cold hardiness data is 2020. This has been a long demonstration but will bear valuable information for the residents of Fort Bend County.

If you choose to visit this garden, you may find this flier helpful.

Citrus Trial Garden – Garden of the Month February 2020 by Garreta Kipp, Fort Bend Master Gardener

The twelve varieties are:

Miyagawa Citrus unshiu	Dobashi Beni Citrus reticulate	China 9 Citrus reticulata
Arctic Frost Citrus reticulata	Bumper Citrus reticulate	Orange Frost Citrus reticulata
Kimborogh Citrus reticulata	Xie Shan Citrus reticulata	Clementine Citrus reticulata
Silverhill Citrus reticulata	Miho Wase Citrus unshiu	Okitsu Wase Citrus