Photo: Nikita from Russian Federation — CC BY 2.0 · source
Survives zone 7 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Citrus junos (yuzu) is an aromatic, exceptionally cold-hardy citrus grown almost entirely for its fragrant zest and juice rather than for fresh eating, and is a cornerstone flavoring in Japanese and Korean cuisine.
- Hardiness
- Zone 7–9
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Winter (citrus)
- Mature size
- Evergreen shrub or small tree 3–5 m; containerable
- Light
- Full sun
- Soil pH
- 6.0–6.5 (slightly acid)
- Environment
- Subtropical
- Native range
- Of Chinese origin, believed to have arisen as a natural hybrid between mandarin and Ichang papeda in central China and the Tibetan plateau, where wild-type ancestors still occur at high elevation; introduced to Japan and Korea during the Tang dynasty and now most widely cultivated there.
- Status
- Cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Slow-growing — seed-grown trees typically take around ten years to reach fruiting size, though grafted trees fruit considerably sooner.
- Spacing
- 400 cm (157 in) apart — about 16 m² (172 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Evergreen, simple (unifoliate) leaves with a large, distinctly winged petiole — another papeda-lineage trait — and heavily aromatic foliage when crushed.
- Root system
- Typically grown grafted onto Poncirus trifoliata or a trifoliate-hybrid rootstock, which largely determines the effective root system; own-root seedlings are slower-growing and far slower to reach fruiting size.
- Fruit description
- A bumpy-skinned, yellow (green when unripe) fruit roughly 5.5–7.5 cm across, occasionally larger, resembling an uneven clementine. The flavor is tart and intensely fragrant, similar to grapefruit with mandarin overtones. Rarely eaten fresh — valued almost entirely for its aromatic zest and juice, used in Japanese and Korean cooking much the way lemon is used elsewhere.
- Propagation
- Propagated primarily by grafting — commonly onto Poncirus trifoliata or a trifoliate-hybrid rootstock, using T-budding or whip-and-tongue grafts in late winter or early spring — which speeds fruiting to about 4–6 years and boosts cold hardiness. Seed-grown trees (seeds soaked 24 hours, germinating in 2–4 weeks) can take 8–12 years to bear fruit and tend to carry heavy thorns.
- Pollination
- Most Citrus SELF-FERTILE (many parthenocarpic/seedless)
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Prefers well-drained, fertile soil in full sun; like other citrus, responds well to regular applications of a balanced, nitrogen-rich citrus fertilizer through the active growing season, tapering off before winter dormancy.
How it spreads. An upright, thorny, single-trunked tree that does not sucker or spread vegetatively; no record of it naturalizing outside cultivation.
Growing tips. One of the most cold-hardy citrus grown for its fruit — established plants tolerate winter lows of roughly -12 to -15°C (10 to 5°F), a hardiness traced directly to its Ichang papeda parentage — and grafting onto Poncirus trifoliata rootstock improves cold tolerance further still. Slow-growing and thorny throughout. Species-specific citrus greening (HLB) data is limited, though as a relative of Ichang papeda it is of ongoing interest in disease-tolerance breeding.
Grow journal
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