Lemon Zest
IMPORTANT READ BEFORE Make your Grafting Request Order
We are only able to graft twice a year, Late Spring & Late Summer.
- If we receive the order between after September 24th and before May 1st, The trees will be grafted in Spring & should be ready by the end of the year.
- For orders made after May 01st and before of September 24th will be grafted in late Summer and should be ready in the Spring following year, May most likely.
Only Once the small tree has completed two flushes of growth since it was grafted do we consider it ready to leave our nursery.
(Estimated time is 6 to 8 months. Some varieties take longer time to growth)
Lemon Zest was a seedling of Po Pyu Kalay /"Lemon Meringue" from the breeding program of Gary Zill in Boynton Beach, FL (planting # 27-1).
The fruit somewhat resembles Lemon Meringue, a solid yellow color but is much larger and more oval-oblong with a small nak at the bottom. The flesh is yellow and fiber-free. They are unbelievably richly sweet with candied orange and tangelo citrus flavors dominating, enough to overwhelm the palate for many. The seed is large and polyembryonic.
Lemon Zest fruits later than Lemon Meringue, more of a July-August season here. The trees start out slow but become very vigorous growers with vertical, dense canopy.
They are moderately prone to anthracnose at the floral and small fruit stage, and *highly* prone to powdery mildew. They also tend to bloom erratically, sometimes flushing growth in winter season, and these factors combined with losses to bacterial black spot have conspired to limit production over the long run in our area of Florida.
Lemon Zest is highly prone to bacterial black spot disease . Given all these unfortunate factors, we have a difficult time recommending the planting of Lemon Zest in south Florida and have top-worked most of our trees to other cultivars. We feel it may be a very good choice for growers in southern California however, where its only major disease issue is powdery mildew and the trees grow at an acceptable rate. Some growers in south Florida continue to have good luck with Lemon Zest also, and it can likely thrive in areas of the state where mango bacterial black spot isn't prevalent.
Flavor: Citrus
Country: Florida-USA