Initial production and fruit quality of fifty-seven sweet orange varieties on four rootstocks in southern state of Bahia

Abstract

Prior knowledge of scion/rootstock combinations is essential for establishing appropriate citrus orchard management strategies. The objective of this work was to assess the initial yield and fruit quality among 228 scion/rootstock combinations set up in the municipality of Ibirapuã, extreme south of the state of Bahia in 2015. Harvests were carried out from April to August 2019, when trees reached 4 years of age. Number, total mass and cross-sectional diameter of fruits, productive efficiency, pulp yield, soluble solids content, titratable acidity and SS/AT ratio were evaluated. Statistical difference for all characteristics related to production and fruit quality regarding factors studied and their combinations was observed. Among ‘Pera’ orange clones, ‘Pera CNPMF A-15’/‘San Diego’ citrandarin and ‘Pera CNPMF D-3’/‘Riverside’ citrandarin combinations stood out. ‘Sincorá’ orange, in combination with ‘San Diego’ and ‘Indio’ citrandarins presented potential to be recommended to producers who wish to anticipate their harvests, as well as ‘Natal Ipeal’ orange in combination with ‘Indio’ citrandarin, in the sense of postponing them.

Physico-chemical characterization of orange fruits on different rootstocks

“…In this way, we must highlight the cups 'Pera D-3', 'Pera Olimpia', 'Pera Bianchi', 'Jaffa', 'Sincorá', 'Early Oblong', 'Pera Ibotirama', 'Seleta Itaborai', 'Rubi CN -01', 'Westin' and 'Flor Brumadinho' which presented mean values for the Ratio superior to the minimum standard of quality in all the analyzed rootstocks. These results corroborate those obtained by Buffon et al (2021), who state that these combinations, except for the 'Jaffa' tops on the 'Indio' rootstock, presented minimum quality standards required by in natura market. Means followed by the same lowercase in the column and uppercase letter in the row do not differ by the Scott-Knott mean cluster test at 5% probability.…”

“…Regarding the titratable acidity (Table 6), there was a statistical difference between the treatments where the mean values varied between the combinations of 2.6 to 0.5% of citric acid. These results show greater am-plitude than those obtained by Buffon et al (2021), who reported a variation from 0.36 to 1.47% of citric acid in 57 orange tree tops on four rootstocks. With the maturation of the orange fruits, there is a decrease in acidity, and this factor is related to the respiration process of the fruits since organic acids are used that are converted into sugars.…”