Comparison of two citrus bud-forcing methods for rapid propagation of scions on new hybrid citrumelo rootstocks

Abstract

Bending was compared to cutting off for effectiveness in forcing growth of sweet orange and mandarin scions budded on 'Carrizo' citrange, 'Swingle' citrumelo, and 17 new hybrid citrumelo rootstocks. For both scion types, more than twice as many plants from the bending treatment than the cut treatment had growing scion buds at 12 weeks. This advantage of the bending treatment was similar for most scion/rootstock combinations except with sweet orange scion on 'Carrizo', which produced outstanding bud growth from both forcing methods. Length of growing shoots at 12 weeks was >14 times longer from the bending than the cut treatment for both scions and with all rootstocks. Tree survival and yield of usable trees at 35 weeks old were also significantly better for the bending treatment than for the cut treatment. There was an overwhelming advantage to using the bending treatment instead of cutting off in forcing scion bud growth for propagating citrus trees on citrumelo rootstocks.