Relationship between Fruiting Mother Shoot and Flowering in 7 Citruses

Abstract

In this study, the relationship between characteristics of the fruiting mother shoot and inflorescence number was investigated in 7 citrus cultivars (‘Aoshima unshu’, ‘Shiranuhi’, ‘Setoka’, ‘Harehime’, ‘Seinannohikari’, ‘Tsunokagayaki’, and ‘Reikou’) for 2 years. In all citruses investigated in this study, absolute values of the correlation coefficient between the characteristics of the fruiting mother shoot and numbers of sprouting buds, vegetative shoots, or inflorescences were less than 0.5. In decision tree analysis, the number of total inflorescences, which is the sum of leafless and leafy inflorescences, was high in the thin fruiting mother shoots of ‘Aoshima unshu’ and in the thick ones of ‘Reikou’. In ‘Shiranuhi’, ‘Harehime’, ‘Seinannohikari’, and ‘Tsunokagayaki’, the numbers of total inflorescences were high in the long shoots. In ‘Setoka’, total numbers of inflorescences were higher in shoots in a certain length range. In decision tree for leafless inflorescence, numbers of inflorescences were higher in short shoots of ‘Aoshima unshu’ and ‘Setoka’, and in long ones of ‘Harehime’ and ‘Seinannohikari’. In ‘Shiranuhi’ and ‘Reikou’, numbers of leafless inflorescences were higher in the thinner shoots and, in ‘Tsunokagayaki’, numbers of leafless inflorescences were higher in the downward ones. In decision tree analysis for the number of leafy inflorescences, numbers of leafy inflorescences were higher in the longer shoots of ‘Aoshima unshu’, ‘Shiranuhi’, ‘Setoka’, and ‘Tsunokagayaki’. In ‘Harehime’, ‘Seinannohikari’, and ‘Tsunokagayaki’, numbers of leafy inflorescences were higher in the thicker shoots.