UF RedLime

UF RedLime is a red-pulp finger lime developed by UF/IFAS breeder Manjul Dutt and released in 2021. The patent traces it to a spring 2014 cross at Winter Haven, Florida, between two unnamed selections of Citrus australasica var. sanguinea.^{⁠[1]⁠[4]⁠[6]}

Fruit are long and narrow with slightly tapered ends and a dark-red rind. Published measurements and seed counts vary across reports: the official UF page gives 22–30 g, 4.2–4.8 inches and 0–14 seeds; Dutt's 2022 article reports 28.8 g and 4–14 seeds, while the five-year-old Carrizo-budded Lake Alfred patent specimen averaged 25.8 g with 8–25 seeds. Presentation snapshots give 16–23 seeds in 2023 and 0–23 in 2024, with sampling details incomplete.^{⁠[1]⁠[2]⁠[4]⁠[5]⁠[10]}

The official page describes an upright, open, scraggly bush with red young flush, sporadic year-round bloom and a February–March main bloom. In the patent’s Lake Alfred description, the main crop matures in November–December, fruit can be harvested into February, and fully mature fruit should be picked because it does not remain on the tree. The presenter reports larger fruit and taller younger trees at Homestead than at Lake Alfred, but those site observations are from noisy captions and involve different-aged trees.^{⁠[1]⁠[4]⁠[9]}

UF reports preliminary HLB tolerance and no bacterium detected in young trees, while the patent says the actual tolerance level was too early to determine. The official page also reports recovery after occasional Citra freezes without temperatures and lists citrus-canker susceptibility; the 2024 presentation says preliminary observations favor SunLime for colder conditions and notes young-flush tip burn, without a RedLime minimum temperature. These reports do not establish immunity or a cold-survival threshold.^{⁠[1]⁠[4]⁠[10]}