Kunenbo Mandarin

UC ANR’s 2021 historical account says maritime trade brought Kunenbo from Indochina to Okinawa about 400–500 years ago. This secondary account, linked to Wu et al.’s genomic study, concerns the historical cultivar name and does not establish an exact origin date or a match between this catalog entry and a sampled genotype.^⁠[6]⁠[4]

UCR’s record for CRC 3346 says it was received as seed from USDA Orlovista in 1960 and that its parents are unknown. The page gives separately attributed descriptions by Tanaka, W.P. Bitters (1963), and EMN (1987); it does not establish that those reports concern the accession or describe the same tree.^⁠[1]

UCR quotes Tanaka describing orange, depressed-globose to slightly obovoid fruit as having “almost no acid” and being “not juicy.” Bitters’ 1963 Japan-trip note reports an average fruit weight of 120 g, a 3–5 mm rind, and about 15–20 seeds; the quoted tree was called “hardy as Satsuma,” without a temperature or a demonstrated link to CRC 3346. A separate 1987 note describes large fruit with very thick rind and “lots of rag.” In a different study, Kunenbo served as rootstock beneath Redblush grapefruit scions. These are distinct historical accounts and a rootstock trial, not a unified cultivar profile.^⁠[1]⁠[7]

A 2022 review describes Kunenbo as an offspring of Kishu and an unidentified seed parent. A 2025 review table lists Kunenbo-A with its female parent unidentified and Kishu as the male parent. The catalog tree records unknown seed parent × Kishu pollen parent as a qualified Kunenbo-A model; the cited studies do not establish a match to this catalog entry or UCR CRC 3346.^⁠[3]⁠[9]

Genomic papers address distinct study material: Fujii et al. could not distinguish three named Kunenbo entries using 206 SNPs; Liu et al. analyzed a sample labeled Kunenbo (SRR14453877) in a Satsuma-origin comparison; and Kawahara et al.’s abstract labels Kunenbo and Kishu parental genomes for Miyagawa Wase. None identifies its Kunenbo material as the catalog entry or UCR CRC 3346. The catalog retains a broad 50% Mandarin / 50% Sweet Orange ancestry estimate, but these findings do not validate those percentages or establish an exact Sweet Orange parent.^{⁠[5]⁠[8]⁠[10]}