Vegetative growth and fruit production potential of ‘pear’ and ‘aquiri’ orange grafted onto different citrus rootstocks grown

The rootstock for grafting sweet orange is ‘Cravo” lime acid, a variety that is susceptibility to various fungal diseases. In order to improve citrus orchardsit is essential to employ rootstocks with more advantageous traits. The aim of this study was to evaluate the vegetative and reproductive characteristics in young plants of ‘Pear’ or ‘Aquiri’ sweet orange grafted onto different rootstocks. The field experiment followed a randomized block design with a simple 2 x 8 factorial scheme comprising 16 combinations of eight rootstocks and two scions, with four repetitions of two plants per plot. The rootstocks employed were ‘Cravo Santa Cruz’ lime, ‘Sunki TSK×CTTR-002’ tangerine, ‘Sunki Tropical’ tangerine, ‘Volkamer’ lemon, ‘Sunki TSK×CTTR-017’ tangerine, ‘Cleopatra’ tangerine, ‘Carrizo’ citrange and ‘Cravo’ lime. In 2-year-old plants, ‘Cravo Santa Cruz’lime, ‘Volkamer’ lemon and ‘Cravo’ lime induced the best vegetative growth (plant height, crown projection area and graft compatibility index) and the best reproductive performance (number of fruits per plant), whereas Sunki TSK×CTTR-002 tangerine induced the poorest growth and the lowestfruit productivity. Considering that vigor and early fruiting are associated with improved production, ‘Cravo Santa Cruz’ lime and ‘Volkamer’ lemon represent possible alternatives to ‘Cravo’ lime for use in orange orchards in Acre.