ISHS Acta Horticulturae 632: XXVI International Horticultural Congress: Citrus and Other Subtropical and Tropical Fruit Crops: Issues, Advances and Opportunities
POLLINATION EFFECTS ON QUALITY IN 'OROVAL CLEMENTINE' MANDARIN IN AUSTRALIA |
| Author: | H.M. Wallace |
| Keywords: | pollen parent, fruit size, seediness, Citrus reticulata, parthenocarpy |
| Abstract:
The subtropical horticultural sector in Australia has undergone profound change in the last 20 years and there is now a strong emphasis on quality of produce. Pollination is an important influence on quality in subtropical fruit and nut crops and pollination with different pollen genotypes is known to influence quality variables such as sugar content, fruit size and seediness. The effect of two cross pollen genotypes, ‘Murcott’ tangor and ‘Imperial’ mandarin, and the effect of self pollen, bagging and no pollination on ‘Oroval Clementine’ mandarin in Bundaberg, Australia were tested. ‘Oroval Clementine’ fruit set was reduced in the self, bagged and unpollinated treatments (P<0.01). These treatments produced 0 to 5% fruit set, less than one third of the fruit set for cross-pollinated treatments (15%). There was no significant difference between the cross-pollinated treatments. Fruit weights were also significantly affected by pollination (P<0.01). ‘Oroval Clementine’ fruit from cross pollen treatments weighed 1.5 times more than fruits of the unpollinated treatments. However, the cross-pollinated fruits were very seedy and contained 15 to 20 seeds per fruit. These results show that ‘Oroval Clementine’ may have very low parthenocarpic fruit set under Australian conditions. Higher fruit set and larger, more seedy fruits are likely to be obtained by interplanting ‘Oroval Clementine’ with ‘Imperial’ mandarin and ‘Murcott’ tangor. | |
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files) | |
