Abstract
Turkey is one of the major citrus producing countries in the Mediterranean Basin. Approximately 90% of the total citrus production in Turkey is carried out in the Mediterranean Region. Soil of the Mediterranean region is calcareous and because sour orange is tolerant to high pH, the rootstocks is widely used in this region. Sour orange rootstock, which is well adapted to calcareous soils, has positive effects on yield and quality, but is extremely sensitive to Citrus Tristeza Virus disease. Because sour orange is very sensitive to tristeza, there is a need to find an alternative rootstock that is well adapted to calcareous soils and has good fruit yield and quality. For this purpose, 16 citrus rootstock and genotypes could be used as a rootstock, were tested against high-pH conditions for iron chlorosis in growth chamber. At the end of this experiment, Tuzcu 891 sour orange, Gou Tou sour orange and Antalya Cleopatra mandarin were the most tolerant; Duncan grapefruit, Tuzcu 31-31 sour orange, Sunki mandarin, Nasnaran mandarin, Cleopatra mandarin x Swingle citrumelo hybrid, Carrizo citrange, C-35 citrange and Marumi kumquat were moderate tolerant; Volkameriana, Swingle citrumelo, Pomeroy trifoliate and Sarawak bintangor were sensitive; and a local trifoliate was found to be the most sensitive to iron chlorosis in a high pH medium.
Highlights
World citrus production was 128,922,136 tons in 2011
The present study evaluated 16 citrus genotypes used as rootstocks in citriculture in order to determine the tolerance levels to lime induced iron deficiency under controlled conditios
Leaf number was significantly affected by high pH, plants grown in high pH conditions were lighter and with fewer leaves
Summary
Due to the steady increase in citrus production in Turkey, 3,613,770 million tons of citrus fruits were produced in 2011. The most prevalent cause of Fe deficiency in this region is the presence of high levels of carbonate ions in the calcareous soils (Pestana et al, 2005). Such soils contain high bicarbonate (HCO3-) concentrations in their soil solution, which are characterized by a high pH (Mengel, 1994). Fe uptake is highly dependent on soil pH and iron activity in solution decreases 1000-fold for each pH unit rise to reach a minimum within the range from 7.4 to 8.5 (Byrne et al, 1995)
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