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Home , Lemon, Rough lemon, Volkamer lemon

Behaviour of Rough as Rootstock in the Presence of Tristeza Virus

Silvio Moreira, CClio S. Moreira, and Ary A. Salibe

ABSTRACT. Trees budded on grew and yielded less than those on most other rootstocks used in . Four types of rough lemon were known in the country, namely: Deodoro (intolerant to tristeza), Brazilian, and South African. Controlled experiments and field observations indicated that Florida rough lemon while considered commercially tolerant to tristeza is somewhat affected by the virus and may exhibit wood pitting in the presence of severe strains. South African rough lemon having been selected in the presence of tristeza is probably more tolerant to the virus and should be considered a superior type to be used in tristeza infected areas. Index words. Florida rough lemon, sweet tristeza stem pitting.

Rough lemon ranks among the experiments with rootstocks rank- most widely used rootstocks in ing top position were: orchards around the . 48, sweet orange 5, sour In Brazil, Florida rough lemon was orange 2, Brazilian rough lemon 2, indicated as a valuable rootstock Palestine sweet lime 2, Morton type, before the invasion of tris- 1, Florida rough lemon 1 teza virus (I), however, trees and 1. Other ex- budded on rough lemon nearly al- periments are still underway and ways grew and yielded poorly and those results were not included rough lemon never became popular here. in Brazil (6, 9, 11, 12). Four types of rough lemon are Over 100 rootstock experiments known in Brazil, namely Deodoro, were conducted in S5o Paulo, Brazilian, Florida and South Afri- Brazil, since 1930. Florida rough can. All trees budded on Deodoro lemon was included in practically rough lemon died following tris- all of them, with different scion teza infection indicating intoler- varieties and only rarely appeared ance or hypersensitivity of this among those showing the best per- rootstock to this virus. The be- formances (5, 6, 13). In one ex- haviour of these rough lemon se- ception, it ranked in first place with lections when used as rootstock in Pineapple orange scion in an ex- the presence of tristeza virus was periment conducted at the Tiete studied and results are reported Experiment Station from 1949- here. 1958 (7). In several instances, MATERIALS AND METHODS trees of orange and budded on rough lemon developed Seedlings of Florida and South an abnormality resembling "dry African rough lemon and Brazilian root rot", declined and died within rough lemon (possibly a lemon 15 years of planting (5). ) and also of Rangpur lime, A statistical study made by the 20 months old in the nursery were authors indicated that from 1930- budded with nucellar Baianinha 1983, 101 rootstock experiments navel orange taken from a single were conducted in S5o Paulo, mother tree. This mother tree was Brazil. Numbers of experiments known to be free from psorosis, with the following scion varieties exocortis and xyloporosis but in- were: oranges 64, 12, fected with a severe strain of tris- 11, 6, limes teza virus. Budding was conducted 5, and 3. The number of in January 1956 and the buddlings Tristexa and Related Diseases 87 transferred to the field (Bebedouro more productive and less affected county), in February 1957. The ex- by tristeza wood pitting. Rangpur periment was set out in a random- lime, while not considered a rough ized block design with four repli- lemon type was included in the ex- cations and three trees per plot. periment for comparative purposes Planting distance was 7x7. The soil and showed excellent performance, was very sandy, with a pH around superior to all other rootstocks 5.0 raised to 6.0-6.5 by yearly ap- tested. plications of dolomitic limestone. The experiment was conducted DISCUSSION AND without irrigation. CONCLUSIONS Trees bloomed for the first Rough lemon, because of its time in 1960 and production vigour and productivity is a popu- was recorded from 1961 to 1968. lar rootstock for sandy soils in Trunk circumference was measured many citrus growing areas of the 10 cm above the budunion, in 1968, world. However, in the presence 2s a comparative index of tree of tristeza virus, under growing growth. At the same time, a piece conditions of the State of Siio of bark was removed at budunion Paulo, trees on Florida rough and the amount of wood pitting lemon have frequently shown poor was rated, on a scale from zero growth and lower yields when (no pits) to four (severe pitting). compared with those budded on RESULTS Rangpur lime (5, 6, 8,ll). Results of the experiment reported here The various rootstocks affect- confirmed that the rough lemon se- ed tree vigour and fruit production lections tested were inferior to considerably (table 1). Trees on Rangpur lime as rootstocks. More- Florida rough lemon were the over, trees on Florida rough lemon smallest and exhibited the largest made the least growth and ranked average amount of wood pitting in in third position in productivity. the trunk below the budunion. It is believed that Florida Those budded on South African rough lemon, while having tissues rough lemon were significantly su- tolerant to tristeza virus, must be perior to those on other rough affected to a certain degree by this lemon types, and were larger and virus. Salibe (10) reported that

TABLE 1 EFFECT OF ROOTSTOCK IN THE GROWTH AND PRODUCTIVITY OF NU- CELLAR BAIANINHA NAVEL ORANGE TREES IN THE PRESENCE OF SEVERE TRISTEZA VIRUS, PLUS RATE OF WOOD PITTING IN THE TRUNK OF ROOTSTOCKS

Average trunk Wood circumference in Total number of Rootstock Pitting* 1968 (1961-68)

Rangpur Kme South African rough lemon Florida rough lemon Brazilian rough lemon

* wood pitting rated on a scale of 0 = none to 4 = severe, 88 Ninth, ZOCV Conference tristeza virus reduced the growth South African rough lemon of young mandarin up to having been selected in the pres- 50%, on 17 different tristeza toler- ence of tristeza probably is more ant rootstocks. Reductions were : tolerant to the virus and this would trifoliata 50.0%, Morton citrange explain its superiority in the pres- 48.9%, Rough lemon 32.3%, sweet ent work. For this reason it should orange 21.174, Orlando be considered a superior type for 16.0%, Cleopatra mandarin 11.6%, tristeza infected areas. Carrizo citrange 2.3% and Rang- Tristeza is spreading in the pur lime 0.0. On the other hand, citrus areas around the world. On several authors (2, 3, 4) as early the basis of the results here re- as 1922 reported the superiority ported it is recommended that the of trees on Florida rough lemon behaviour of commercial , but their studies were types and stionic combinations made with trees free from tristeza should be re-evaluated in areas in- virus. vaded by this virus.

LITERATURE CITED 1. ANDRADE, E. N. 1930. Rootstocks for citrus budding. Boletim de Agricultura, SIo Paulo. No. 9-10. 2. COOK, J. A., G. E. HORANIC, and F. E. GARDNER 1952. Citrus rootstock trials. Proc. Fla. State Hort. Soc. 65: 69-77. 3. EVANS, W. E. 1922. Citrus root stocks. Proc. Fla. State Hort. Soc. 35: 134-138. 4. MENDEL, K. 1956. Rootstock-scion relationships in Shamouti trees on light soil. Ktavim, Rehovot 6: 35-60. 5. MOREIRA, S. 1957. Rootstocks and diseases of citrus in Brazil. Revista de Agricultura, Piracicaba 32 (2) : 127-136. 6. MOREIRA, S. and A. A. SALIBE 1969. The contribution of research for the progressive changes in citrus root- stocks for . p. 351-357. In H. D. Chapman (ed.) Proc. First Intern. Citrus Symp. Vol. 1. 7. MOREIRA, S., V. G. OLIVEIRA and E. ABRAMIDES 1960. Experimentos de cavalos para citros 111. Bragantia, Campinas 19(59) : 961-995. 8. MOREIRA, S., C. ROESSING, and E. ABRAMIDES 1962. Experimentos de cavalos para citros IV. Bragantia, Campinas 21: 63-76. 9. MOREIRA, S., T. J. GRANT, A. A. SALIBE and C. ROESSING 1965. Tristeza tolerant rootstocks-their behavior after twelve years in orch- ard. p. 18-24. In, W. C. Price (ed.) Proc. 3rd Conf. IOCV. Univ. Florida Press, Gainesville. 10. SALIBE, A. A. 1966. Citrus virus diseases, a report to the government of the Philippines. and Agricultural- Organization. Report No. TA 2237. 31 p. 11. SALIBE, A. A. 1974. Effect of rootstock and locality in the vigour and productivity of sweet orange trees. Thesis. Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Botucatu. 226 p. 12. SALIBE, A. A. and V. ROSSETTI 1960. Variedades citricas e seus porta-enxertos nos laranjais paulistas. Arqui- vos Instituto Biol6gico 27: 161-168. 13. VASCONCELLOS, P. W. c.- 1939. Estudo comparativo de laranjeira Bahia comum sobre cinco diferentes porta-enxertos. Boletim de Agricultura, n6mero 6nico. 37 p.