A Flavorful Foray into the Genetic Wonder of Citrus Season

Citrus season is a time of wild abundance. Every week, new delicious varieties become available from OGC’s grower partners in California and beyond. Citrus fruits in all shapes, sizes and colors move through the warehouse – from the tiniest orange kumquats to yellow pummelos the size of volleyballs.  

Native to South and East Asia, fossilized leaves found in China’s Yunnan Province suggest that citrus has been around for as long as seven million years. Remarkably, almost all the citrus species we know and love come from just three primary ancestors: citron, pummelo and mandarin.  

Smaller but important genetic contributions come from other wild species like papeda, a slow growing and bitter green fruit that is a parent to beloved fruits like Key limes, Yuzu lemons and Makrut limes. Though scientists have long debated whether kumquats belong in the citrus family, their crosses with citrus varieties bring us delights like Limequat and Calamondin.  

Almost all varieties in the family Rutaceae can cross to create new types of citrus, which is a rare characteristic among fruit families. The plants are also very likely to mutate, and together these genetic traits lead to an incredible diversity of fruits from just a few parent species.  

“There’s something fascinating, freaky, even sexy about citrus,” says pomologist and “Fruit Detective” David Karp, who has worked extensively with the Citrus Variety Collection at University of California, Riverside and co-founded the Chinese Citrus Germplasm repository in Jiangshui, China.  

Many types of citrus first developed in the wild – like lemon, a cross between citron and bitter orange that first appeared in northeastern India thousands of years ago. Grapefruit, on the other hand, is thought to have spontaneously hybridized in 1600s Barbados when a bitter orange and a pummelo were planted close together – a result of both luck and human intervention. Other tried and true varieties, like the TDE mandarin, were carefully developed by plant breeders in the last few decades. 

Plant breeders are continuing to develop new varieties of citrus, focusing on the characteristics that eaters love the most: sweetness, juiciness, a lack of seeds and fruit that’s easier to peel. That means we’ll continue to see new citrus varieties appear – and watch the family tree continue to grow.  

Stay up to date on all the great citrus OGC has to offer and educate your eaters with the Citrus Toolkit, and be in touch with your Account Representative to bring in the very best organic citrus.