'Valencia' sweet orange trees grafted on trifoliate hybrids

Abstract

Rangpur lime is the most important rootstock for the citrus industry of the São Paulo State. Diseases like tristeza, gummosis and declínio/blight have dangeroursly narrowed down the choice for citrus rootstocks. In order to broaden the rootstock avaliability the Centro de Citricultura Sylvio Moreira of the Instituto Agronômico de Campinas maintains a rootstock selection program, consisting specially of Rangpur lime and trifoliate hybrids. This article reports results of an experiment with trifoliate hybrids from the US Horticulture Laboratory in Orlando, Florida. Buds of a nucellar clone of 'Valencia' sweet orange carrying citrus tristeza virus (CTV) were grafted onto trifoliate hybrids. The trees were planted on a sandy textured Oxisol in Pirassununga, SP, near to groves showing declinio/blight and managed without irrigation. Rootstocks in a decreasing order of the yield of eight harvests are: Changsha mandarin ×English Small trifoliate, Sunki mandarin × Benecke trifoliate, Shamouti sweet orange × Mediterranean sweet orange × Christiansen trifoliate, Rangpur lime ×Swingle trifoliate (B), Rangpur lime ×Swingle trifoliate (A) Changsha mandarin × English Large trifoliate, Morton citrange, Miaray mandarin, Siamese × Gotha - road hybrid, Davis A trifoliate, Smooth Flat Seville sour orange × Argentina trifoliate, Troyer and Carrizo tetraployds citranges. The Miaray mandarin showed CTV stem pitting and Smooth Flat Seville ´ Swingle citrumelo hybrid were intolerant to CTV.