During the third quarter of 2019 multiple field trips were conducted to continue tree evaluations and complete measurements of trunk cross sectional areas of rootstocks and scion. The statistical analysis of data was continued. A subset of trees with selected scion/rootstock combinations was used for additional root analyses (root mass and specific root length). Several field trips were also conducted to meet with the grower and plant breeders to decide which rootstocks are of no commercial value and may be removed.
Updates on this project including information on tree size, yield, and fruit quality were presented at three grower/industry events: 1) a presentation at the Citrus Advisory Committee meeting at SWFREC (12th July) titled “Evaluation of citrus rootstock performance in large-scale field trials, 2) a presentation at the Citrus Expo in Fort Myers (14th Aug) titled “Bigger is not always better – large-scale rootstock evaluations on a Ridge and flatwoods site”, and 3) a one-hour seminar including printed educational information at SWFREC (15th Sep) titled “Which rootstock to plant in an HLB-endemic environment”. A new EDIS publication “Citrus nursery production guide, chapter 4: Rootstock selection” was completed and is available at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs1340.