Quote:
Originally Posted by rmay635703
Nothing to do with temperature,
Americans generally no longer consume "fridgid weather" oranges, the coldest weather a sweet orange can tolerate is 5 F but it's full of seeds, (one common variety is Changa after winterizing) tarter more bitter varieties can tolerate even colder, historically people would eat these varieties but now big, seedless sweet and easy to peel are expected.
Those types of oranges aren't cold ready.
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Most of the "frigid weather" citrus varieties were introduced in the early 1900's after the severe cold snap of 1899. The cold snap of 1899 caused ice floes to flow out of the mouth of the Mississippi, brought subzero (F) temperatures to Florida, and frosts to Cuba. It wiped out citrus along the northern tier of citrus cultivation in the southeast United States. At the time Mark Twain was making his trip down the Mississippi described in his book, sweet oranges (introduced by the spanish in the 1500's) were commonly grown in Louisiana and Mississippi, mandarins were introduced in the late 1840's and would have been a fairly new crop in the region. Satsuma tangerines, the cold hardiest of the highly edible citrus, was introduced to the gulf coast in the late 1870's and wouldn't have been seen by Twain. The cold hardiest sweet oranges, such as Hamlin, are only cold hardy into the upper 20's F.
Most of the extremely cold hardy barely edible citrus like Changsha manderin, Yuzu, and Ishang lemon were introduced in the early 1900's. Also many Poncirus crosses with sweet orange, grapefruit, and manderins (citrange, citrumelo, citrandarin) were made at this time in the search for a highly edible cold hardy citrus.