Petr Broza, Moravec 120, 592 54, Czech Republic

Dear friends and growers of citrus,

Allow me to introduce my citrus collection.I have been growing citrus trees for almost 20 years now. In 1987, I began building my first double-pane greenhouse. The greenhouse measures 8 meters long, 6.5 meters wide and 2.5 meters bellow surrounding terrain. In 1996, two factors—the presence of a spring and a lack of light—forced me to raise the growing beds by 1 meter.In 2000, I added another greenhouse measuring 4.2 by 6.5 meters. The covering consisted of 16 mm thick polycarbon sheets.In this area, growing beds are situated 1 meter under surrounding terrain.  Higher  light intensity clearly benefits sun-loving citruses. In 2001, the growing area was enlarged by an additional 5 by 6.5 meters. This time the planted area is only covered with plastic sheet.This greenhouse is in use from April through October as a summer location for container plants. The benefit of excellent light conditions is diminished by low temperatures in April and October. Similarly was used fiberglass in spring of year 2003. The area of this greenhouse measures almost 30 square meter.Primarily used for citrus trees, my greenhouses shelter other subtropical plants during the winter months. My subtropical selections include: fig; bay leaf; pomegranate; carob; Chinese date (Chinese jujube); loquat;Feijoa sellowiana (pineapple guava); and kiwi. Despite the high altitude level of my home town of Moravec (located 600 meters above sea level in Zdar-above-Sazava county) I have also had success with grapes, particularly outdoors with frost resistant varieties such as cross-hybrid or “interspecific.” I enjoy visiting different coastal countries and establishing contact with other growers in an effort to further expand my citrus tree collection. At present, I have approximately five hundred varieties of citrus trees and my growing problem is finding adequate greenhouse space. To address this issue, I have started to plant multiple citrus trees into each pot. A majority of the trees are grown in the ground; I will graft branches of other varieties. This system has worked well for me with grapes; to date, five original vines now contain have twenty varieties. With citrus trees, I wish to bring each variety to bear fruit no matter how small the harvest yield might by. I prefer a wide variety of fruit to a large harvest. To document this diversity, I photographed each fruit variety (I am currently using a digital system to catalog these images). Regrettably, I do not have the time to photograph the many varieties of citrus and the images I have converted to digital files are often of poor quality. With some of the smaller trees, the time span between each fruit yield can take several years and some of the fruiting varieties were difficult to maintain. When I began taking these photographs, I did not know that they are once going to culminate in this CD-ROM project and consequently some of the photographs are of poor quality. In closing I would like to add that this project had required a considerable devotion of my free time and my financial resources. Regrettably, I have a limited amount of time and funds; because of this the condition of the greenhouses and trees is such as it is. Creating this CD-ROM has involved a considerable amount of work and financial investment. Because of this, I am asking that you do not to copy this disk. If you wish to obtain a copy of this CD-ROM, contact the author directly.

I cultivated In conclusion, I wish you much success in growing citrus trees—may this noble hobby remain with you even after any minor failures which may meet even the most experienced growers. Perhaps my photos will help you in your endeavors.

My sincere thanks and gratitude for assistance in the creation

of “The Citrus Collection of Petr Broza“ belong to my son, Petr, and friends, Vladimir from Hawaii, and Lubos from Radkov.

                                                                                                           Petr Broza