Skip to main content
Log in

Salt tolerance of lemon trees as affected by rootstock

  • Published:
Irrigation Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Summary

A field experiment was conducted for five years to study the response of 6-year old lemon trees cv. Verna on three different rootstock (sour orange, Cleopatra mandarin and macrophylla) to uniform applications of four irrigation waters having Cl concentrations of 4 (control), 11, 26.5 and 42.5 mol m−3, respectively.

Fruit yield and the growth in trunk circumference were significantly reduced by increasing salinity in the rootzone, although this effect varied with the rootstock. The threshold values for response were 1.53, 2.08 and 1.02 dS m−1 for sour orange, Cleopatra mandarin and macrophylla respectively. The corresponding yield reduction for each unit increase in salinity above those values was 10.5, 13.7 and 14.2%, respectively. Trees on macrophylla accumulated higher Cl concentrations in the leaves than those from the other two rootstocks. The role of the interstock of sanguina orange on restriction of Cl uptake is discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bernstein L (1969) Salinity factors and their limits for citrus agriculture. Proc First Int Citrus Symp 3:1779

    Google Scholar 

  • Bielorai H, Shalhevet J, Levy Y (1978) Grapefruit response to variable salinity in irrigation water and soil. Irrig Sci 1:61

    Google Scholar 

  • Bielorai H, Dasberg S, Erner Y, Brum M (1988) The effect of saline irrigation water on shamouti orange production. Proc Six Int Citrus Congr 2:707

    Google Scholar 

  • Bingham FT, Mahler RJ, Parra J, Stolzy LH (1974) Long-term effects of irrigation salinity management on a Valencia orange orchard. Soil Sci 117:369

    Google Scholar 

  • Cerdá A, Caro M, Fernandez FG, Guillén MG (1977) Foliar contents of sodium and chloride on citrus rootstock irrigated with saline waters. In: Dregne HE (ed) Managing saline water for irrigation. Proc Int Conf Lubbock, Texas

  • Cerdá A, Fernandez FG, Caro M, Guillén MG (1979) Growth and mineral composition of two lemon varieties irrigated with saline waters. Agrochimica XXIII:389

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapman HD, Joseph H, Rayner DS (1969) Effect of variable maintained chloride levels on orange growth, yield and leaf composition. Proc First Int Citrus Symp 3:1811

    Google Scholar 

  • Cole PJ (1985) Chloride toxicity in citrus. Irrig Sci 6:63

    Google Scholar 

  • François LE, Clark RA (1980) Salinity effects on yield and fruit quality of “Valencia” orange. J Am Soc Hort Sci 105:199

    Google Scholar 

  • Heller J, Shalhevet J, Goell A (1973) Response of a citrus orchard to soil moisture and soil salinity. In: Physical aspects of soil water and salt in ecosystems. Ecol Stud 4:409

    Google Scholar 

  • Maas EV, Hoffman GJ (1977) Crop salt tolerance-current assessment. J Irrig Drain Div ASCE 103:115

    Google Scholar 

  • Martinez V, Cerdá A, Guillén MG (1987) Calidad de aguas para riego en la Region de Murcia. Proc. VII Congreso Nacional de Quimica Agricola y Alimentaria II:461

    Google Scholar 

  • Shalhevet J, Yaron D, Horowitz U (1974) Salinity and citrus yield — an analysis of results from a salinity survey. J Hort Sci 49:15

    Google Scholar 

  • van Genuchten MT (1983) Analyzing crop salt tolerance data: model description and user's manual. USDA Salinity Laboratory Riverside, California. Research report 120

    Google Scholar 

  • Vardi A, Spiegel-Roy P, Ben-Hayyim G, Neuman H, Shalhevet J (1988) Response of Shamouti orange and Minneola tangelo on six rootstocks to salt stress. Proc Six Int Citrus Congr 1:75

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Cerda, A., Nieves, M. & Guillen, M.G. Salt tolerance of lemon trees as affected by rootstock. Irrig Sci 11, 245–249 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00190540

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00190540

Keywords

Navigation