Behavior of ponkan mandarin tree canopy grafted onto rangpur lime and flying dragon rootstocks

Abstract

The Rangpur lime rootstock was the basis of Brazilian citrus growing for many years. However, this rootstock has been gradually replaced due to the occurrence of Citrus Sudden Death. The Flying Dragon rootstock has stood out as one of the options for replacement as it has different characteristics, such as reducing the size of the plant. There is no information in the literature about the behavior of Flying Dragon as a rootstock for Ponkan mandarin. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the behavior of Ponkan mandarin tree canopy grafted onto Rangpur lime and Flying Dragon rootstocks concerning physiological, agronomic, and fruit quality parameters. In the experiment, productivity, soil moisture, water potential, plant height, fruit diameter, fruit length, fruit mass, fruit pH, soluble solids content, titratable acidity, and ratio were evaluated. The Flying Dragon rootstock was responsible for the decrease in average productivity in the Ponkan mandarin culture. Greater plant heights were obtained when canopies were grafted on Rangpur lime. The soluble solids content of fruits from scions grafted on Flying Dragon was higher, but the degree of uniformity of the soluble solids values obtained from the Rangpur lime tree was higher.