citrus - West Coast Agroforestry

September 2, 2025September 2, 2025

More new Citrus varieties!

We have just imported a large quantity of new Citrus varieties into New Zealand (as seed). These came mostly from an overseas Citrus arboretum, and the import was inspected and approved by MPI.

For almost all of these varieties, it’s the first time they have been available in New Zealand (only Cox and Swingle were already imported previously). The reason we imported these is to increase the Citrus genetic diversity in New Zealand, which is relatively narrow at the moment. Genetic diversity will help us grow more food for ourselves, and give us a better chance to handle diseases and a changing climate. Some of these varieties may also be fantastic Citrus rootstocks for certain regions with challenging conditions, such as the West Coast or inland Canterbury/Otago and central North island.

These Citrus have various usages from eating fresh, for marmalade, for juice and for cooking. Many are ultra cold tolerant (to -15 Celsius).

Almost all of these varieties will will ‘clone’ themselves via seed (weird thing Citrus do called Nucellar embryony – article here). A few will produce very unusual seedlings and there could be the next favourite Citrus variety in those.

Seeds are available here: https://agroforestry.co.nz/product-category/seeds/

List of mostly-new Citrus varieties:
Barkley ichandarin
Zao Yang trifoliate
Swingle citrumelo
Cox citrandarin
Ichang papeda
Knights citron
Indian wild orange
Karna khatta hybrid
Beni Amanatsu
Jeruk limau
Citremon

And another half dozen varieties came in very small quantities and so we will grow those on ourselves, before eventually selling grafted varieties. We will make most of these varieties available as grafted plants in the future, but for now buying these seeds is the only way you will be able to grow them.

Any questions – just ask us!

July 18, 2025July 30, 2025

Citrus Update July 2025

Well we are finally sold out of Alemow and Furr C-57 seeds, a huge thank you to everyone who bought some seeds and is helping to trial them in New Zealand. We couldn’t do these kinds of things without your support, so thank you.

Seedlings from our first test batch. Furr C-57 in the top pots, Alemow in the bottom. A slug got into the right-hand Alemow pot hence the smaller size.

We have also finished compiling all the information we can find about these varieties into ‘comprehensive’ plant profiles. Please give them a read if you’re interested in Alemow or Furr C-57 to get the latest up to date information.

If I had to pick 3 key things to mention:

Genetic testing has shown that Alemow is actually a papeda x citron (same cross as Mexican / Key lime), and not a papeda x pomelo as is commonly reported, and so Alemow is actually a true giant lime
Alemow is very susceptible to Citrus Tristeza Virus [CTV], and so it’s recommended to graft it with CTV resistant scions such as lemons, trifoliata and hybrids, Meiwa, Etrog-type citrons, rough lemons, rangpurs (partial list of CTV resistant varieties in the plant profile).
Furr C-57 seems to actually taste pretty good for a trifoliata F1 hybrid, with nearly top marks from a taste report.

Alemow (Citrus macrophylla)

Furr C-57 citrandarin (Citrus reticulata x trifoliata)

Last and definitely not least, we apparently didn’t get enough chaos from importing Citrus seeds, and so we decided to do it again!! This time an incredibly special opportunity was presented to us to import rare and genetically distinct Citrus, and so even more special Citrus seeds are on the way. We’re very excited to share more once everything is final. 🙂

April 18, 2025July 18, 2025

Alemow and Furr C-57 Citrus are finally here!

Well, we have finally succeeded in importing 2x new Citrus varieties to New Zealand! This has been a very long and very expensive process, and we have taken on all of the costs and risks ourselves. We would highly appreciate it if folks can buy some of these Citrus seeds to support our efforts, as there was a 5000 minimum order per each of these varieties

~~You can order directly from our website here:….~~ Edit: These seeds are now completely sold out, and we will likely not import them again. In 5-10 years when our own trees are fruiting we will again have seeds for sale and grafted plants however 🙂

Alemow (Citrus macrophylla) is a rare species of Citrus (according to the Tanaka system) from Cebu in the Philippines, where it is believed to originate. ~~It is believed to be a hybrid of Celebes papeda (Citrus celebica) and pomelo~~ [it is known to be a hybrid of a papeda and a citron]. If used as rootstock, it has superb compatibility with lemons and limes (some varieties of lemon are incompatible with trifoliata), and many other Citrus too such as kumquats, and is emerging as a very high performing Citrus that copes with high salt levels and seasonal flooding. The fruit are ~~sort of like~~ giant limes and can be juiced or used to make marmalade.

Furr C-57 citrandarin (Citrus reticulata x trifoliata) is a hybrid between a Sunki mandarin and trifoliata. It is much more vigorous than trifoliata, and has a longer growing season (as it is evergreen). It is tolerant to Citrus tristeza virus, very tolerant to Phytophthora and very tolerant of citrus nematode – which are the most important diseases of Citrus in NZ. It is super cold tolerant if you want to grow it on for fruit, as it can handle about -15C once mature and so suitable for places such as inland Otago. The fruit can be juiced or used to make a marmalade.

We also have imported a lot of other rare seeds from the USA/Canada as well late last year that are also available too. Most special of which are hybrid persimmons (hybrids between American and Asian persimmons, we can highly recommend these) and Canadian pawpaw (Asimina triloba native to Canada).