Understanding and Manipulating the Interaction of Rootstocks and Constant Nutrition to Enhance the Establishment, Longevity and Profitability of Citrus Plantings in HLB-Endemic Areas

Understanding and Manipulating the Interaction of Rootstocks and Constant Nutrition to Enhance the Establishment, Longevity and Profitability of Citrus Plantings in HLB-Endemic Areas

Report Date: 04/26/2017
Project: 05-013   Year: 2017
Category: Plant Improvement
Author: Jude Grosser
Sponsor: Citrus Research and Development Foundation

Objective 1. (Greenhouse experiment): All liners were treated with the various CRF combinations one month prior to grafting. Stick-grafting of seedlings of the required rootstocks: x639, Swingle, WGFT+50-7, UFR-3 and UFR-15 potted in round citripots with HLB-infected Valencia were completed. 12 trees were grafted per treatment per rootstock. There were only a few failed grafts that are currently being repeated. Objective III: To evaluate the effect of complete, balanced and constant nutrition on HLB-affected mature trees (composition, delivery and economics). The treatments have been applied for one year at both sites. The second year first quarter applications of all the treatments have been completed and second year tree health parameters have been collected. The fruits at both the locations have been harvested and evaluated. Although there were obvious trends suggesting an advantage for applications combining traditional fertilizer with CRF, there was no statistically significant differences (95% confidence level) among the yield of different treatments at either site. There were no statistically significant differences in the fruit quality of fruits from different treatment and growers control at both the Ft. Meade and Arcadia locations. Although at the Arcadia site, treatments 9 and 10 resulted in better juice quality than treatment 6. Overall, no significant differences (95% confidence level) among growers control and treatments were found. This is not unexpected, as we believe it takes time to restore the root systems of impacted trees; thus we expect to see greater differences in the year 2 data. These results were also presented on April 4th, 2017 at Citrus Institute, Avon Park. Ojective 5. (funded by Orie Lee, using donated fertilizer products): Alligator Vernia/Rough Lemon Enhanced Nutrition Experiment � Treatments: 6 tree plots (randomized), 2 plots per treatment � treatments 2 times per year. Yield data was taken after one year, and all treatments yielded significantly better than the non-treated control except for the 4x polycoated sodium borate treatment.


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