This document provides information on citrus fruits (Citrus spp.), including that they are native to tropical and subtropical Asia and are the third largest produced fruit globally. It lists common citrus varieties such as sweet orange, mandarin orange, lime, and lemon. It also discusses citrus production details for India such as major producing states, common varieties, propagation methods, climate and soil requirements, harvesting, and issues like fruit drop.

1. IBPS-AFO
COMPLETE
SYLLABUS
HORTICULTURE (CITRUS)
ICAR
AIEEA-PG(JRF)
3
खट्ट
फल

2. •CITRUS
•Botanical Name: Citrus sps.
•Family: Rutaceae
•Origin: Tropical and Subtropical regions of
south East Asia.
•Citrus fruits are a group of fruits
comprising of mandarins, sweet oranges,
grape fruit, limes and lemons etc.,

3. •3 rd largest produced fruit
•Cross pollination
•Cymose inflorescences
•Hesperedium fruit
•8-12% TSS
•Maximum production – sweet
orange (world) and mandarian (India )

4. •Lime and lemon
•Area Andra Pradesh > Odisha > maharastra
•Production Andrapradesh > tamil nadu > karnatak
•Productivity Karnatak > andra Pradesh > tamilnadu
•Mandarian orange
•Madhya Pradesh highest
•Sweet orange
•Andra Pradesh highest

5. •Citrus fruits contain considerable amounts of
Vitamin C and P.
•The mild bitterness in juice is due to the
presence of glucoside called Naringin which is
said to have a medicinal value.
•The rind of the citrus fruits is rich in pectin and
essential oils.
•Citrus species readily crosses with each other .
•so new types are coming up from time to time.

6. 1. Sweet orange Citrus sinensis
2. Mandarin Orange Citrus reticulata
3 Acid lime Citrus aurantifolia
4. Lemon Citrus limon
5 Grape fruit Citrus paradisi
6 Pummelo Citrus grandis

7. 7.Citron Citrus medica
8. Sweet lime Citrus limettoides
9 Gaganimma Citrus pennivesiculata
10 Vadlapudi Orange Citrus madaraspatana
11. Sour Orange Citrus aurantium
12 Rough lemon Citrus jamberi
13 Rangapur Lime Citrus limonia

8. Important citrus cultivars grown in India:
(1)Sweet Orange: the important ones are-Sathgudi,
Mosambi,Batavian, Malta, Malta Blood Red, Jaffa, Hamlin,
Washington Navel Orange and Pineapple.
(2)Mandarin Oranges: Nagapur Mandarin, Coorg
Mandarin, Khasi Orange, Kinnow Mandarin Kinnow
Mandarin is a hybrid between King Mandarin (C.nobilis)
and willow leaf Mandarin (C.deliciosa),Ponkan, Satsuma
Mandarin, Dancy Tangarin, Darjeeling or Sikkim Orange
and Cleopatra Mandarin.

9. (3)Limes and Lemons
Limes-These include Acid lime, Key lime, Mexican Lime, Tahiti
lime, Sweet lime, Coorg lime and Rangapur lime and sour lime.
Among them the mostly cultivated one is acid lime.
The important varieties of acid lime are -Vikram, Pramalini,
Chakradhar, Balaji etc.
Lemons: Often confused with limes. These are grown in small
scale in pockets. In this there are two types. They are seeded
and seedless.
Seed Varieties-Lisbon, Villa Franca, Eureka, Nepali Round, Nepali
Oblong and Rajhamundry.
Seedless Varieties- Malta, Lucknow and Italian.

10. •Chakradhar – seedless variety of acid lime
•Selection 49 – resistance to canker , leaf minor
and tristiza . It is a profilitic breeder
•Pkm – 1 heavy yielder
•Tahiti lime – thron less triploid fruit variety
•Mitha chikna ( thin rind )
•Mithotra ( thick rind )

11. •Grape fruit
•Monoembryonic species
•Propagated through air layering
•variety
•White flesh – Duncan , marsh , walter
•Red flesh – Hudson, foster, star ruby , ruby red ,
Thompson

12. •Climate:
•Soil temperature around 250C seems to be
optimum for root growth
•low rainfall (ranging from 75cm to 250 cm) are
most favourable for the growth of the crop
•Darjeeling Mandarin (Khasi Orange type) grows
in altitude upto 2000m as it is adapted to a
cooler climate

13. •Soil:
•Deep soils with pH range of 5.5 to 7.5 are
considered good. However, they can grow
in pH range of 4 to 9.
•Propagation:
•Seeds exhibit 45-90% polyembryony
•Shield budding or Tbudding is practiced
all over the world

14. •The most commonly used stocks for sweet
orange as well as mandarins in India are
Jamberi (Rough Lemon) and Karna Khatta.
•1. Jamberi: With more number of seeds, high
percentage of germination and
polyembryony is a vigorous stock for Sathgudi.
•2. Gajanimma: It has all the good nursery
characters of Jamberi and has a prolific but is
susceptible to gummosis and collar rot

15. •3. Trifoliate Orange: It is the hardiest root stock and
does well in forestry areas.
•Resistant to many virus diseases. The plant gets
dwarfed on this root stock and is frost resistant
•4. Karna khatta: It is found to be most common and
satisfactory rootstock for grape fruit, for heavy and
wet soil to Punjab and U.P.
•5. Sathgudi seedling: Suitable for moderately heavy
soils

16. •6. Rangpur lime: It is used as stock for Mosambi in
Bombay region.
•It is a vigorous grower, resistant to many of the
virus diseases chiefly Tristeza virus.
•It gives high yields with fruits of much better
quality and hence recommended as stock for sweet
orange.
•7.Acid lime: Slow growth.
•Thorns make it difficult to bud.
•Resistant to high water table conditions.

17. •8. Kichili: Drought resistant. Slow growth and
gives a globular tree.
•9. Pummelo: It has given a dwarf tree.
•10. Wood apple: Dwarfs Sathgudi very much.
Reduces prebearing period, longevity and yield
but increases the sweetness of fruit.
•11. Sweet Lime: It is a satisfactory stock for
Nagpur Santhra with better quality and tighter
skin.

18. •Sweet Orange: It is propagated by
Shield or T- budding.
•The root stocks mainly used are
Jamberi and Rangapur lime.
•In Andhra Pradesh mainly
Rangapur lime is used as a
rootstock.

19. •Acid Lime: It is commonly propagated by
seed all over the country because the
seeds exhibit a high percentage of
polyembryony.
•The nucellar seedlings are identical with
the parent in growth and production.
•These seedlings are hardy compared to
the budded plants.

20. •Lemons, Grape Fruit and Pummelo: Italian lemon
which is seedless, it is propagated by budding on
Jambheri in the Deccan region.
•For lemons the root stocks found suitable in Punjab
and U.P are Rough lemon and kharna Katta.
•Pummelo is comparatively monoembryonic and
hence budded plants of pummelo are usually raised
on the root stocks of Jatti Katt, Jamberi etc.
•In case of Grapefruit Pummelo as a root stock is
found compatible with grape fruit.

21. •Planting:
•Pits of ½m x ½ m x ½ m size
•where the soils are shallow or under laid
with hard pan, pits of 1mx1mx1m may be
dug to facilitate better root penetration
•25kg of FYM, 1kg of bone meal, 3kg of
wood ash and 50g of Aldrin dust powder
for control of termites

22. •Planting Season: Planting is done from July to
December
•In low or scarce rainfall regions, planting should
be done at the beginning of the monsoon
season (June/July)
•high rainfall, (1000 mm and above) planting
should be done at the end of the southwest
monsoon season (October-December.)

23. •Spacing
•6-8 m
•Manures and fertilizers:

24. •A composit nutrient spray prepared and sprayed twice or
thrice at 20-25 Days interval commencing from the
appearance of new flush will correct deficiencies and
increases the yield and quality of fruits. It is prepared as
follows.

25. •Training and pruning
•all shoots in the first 40-50 cm from
ground level developed in the early
stage should be removed (allow the
growth of a strong trunk)
•The centre of the plant should remain
open.

26. •Intercrops: Leguminous crops like soybean, gram,
groundnut, cow peas, French bean, peas etc
•Intercropping is advisable during the initial three-
four years after planting.
•Bahar Treatment
•In order to overcome irregular fruit production and
to force a full crop in any of the three seasons
•Bahar treatment is practiced in citrus orchards

27. •the citrus trees generally bloom three
times a year
•January-February (Ambe bahar or
Angam),
•June (Mrig bahar or Edagam)
•October (Hastha bahar or
Gairangam).

28. •Trees are treated for Ambe bahar (January-February), in
November or December.
•In this method, from November onwards the amount of water
is gradually reduced in successive irrigations and completely
stopped in December. About the middle of December, the land
is ploughed.
•When the trees start showing wilting symptoms (3-4 weeks),
the soil around the tree to a distance of 120 cm is dug a depth
of 10 cm and the recommended manure is added to the soil
and the trees are irrigated.
•The first irrigation that follows is sparing while the subsequent
ones are more plentiful. Flowers appear about a month after
the first irrigation

29. •In Maharashatra, the roots are also exposed for
about 10 days as part of the bahar treatment
•Cropping:
•Budded sweet orange trees give a commercial crop
in about 5 years.
•Mandarins 6-7 year
•The life of budded tree is about 35 years and of
seedling about 60 years.
•The fruit ripens in about 9 months after flowering

30. •Fruit Drop: Fruit drop in citrus occurs more or
less in three distinct stages viz., post setting
drop, pea size drop and pre-harvest drop.
•Among which the last one is most important
and causes huge loss to the farmers.
•the fruit drop can be classified broadly as
• i) Physiological drop
•ii) Entomological drop
•iii) Pathological drop.

31. • i) Physiological drop
• This is mainly due to competition among fruits for carbohydrates,
water, hormone and other metabolites. The problem is highly
aggravated by water stress and humidity.
• ii) Entomological fruit drop
• Citrus bud mite and orange bug are some important pests which
causes heavy drop of flowers and fruits in oranges.
• Besides fruit fly (Daucus dorsalis) and fruit sucking moth (Otheris
fullonica) are mainly causing fruit drop
• iii) Pathological fruit drop
• Fruit drop also occurs due to pathogenic fungi viz. Botryodiplodia
theobromae, Colletotrichum gleosporoides and Alternaria citri (stem
end rot)

34. •Harvesting: Generally, citrus trees
start bearing fruits 3 - 5 years from
planting (although economic yields
start from the fifth year and the trees
may take 8 to 10 years to achieve full
productivity)

35. •Maturity Indices
•Maturity is measured depending on different
characteristics such as color, juice content, level of
soluble solid (sugar) and solids to acid ratio.
•Normally, citrus fruits are harvested by hand.
• Fruit is best harvested after 8:00 in the morning, when
dew has dried up,
•Lemons and limes are the citrus fruits the most sensitive
to cold weather.
•citrus fruits are cold-sensitive (the plant dies at 3-5º C
below 0ºC)