Preliminary Findings of New Citrus Rootstocks Potentially Tolerant to Foot Rot Caused by Phytophthora

Abstract

Phytophthora spp. are one the most common soil-borne pathogens in citrus crops, in which Phytophthoranicotianae and P. citrophthora are the most relevant species, causing disease problems worldwide, such as foot rot and gummosis of the trunk, branch canker, brown rot of fruit, feeder root rot in orchards, and seedling damping-off in nurseries. Phytophthora-tolerant citrus rootstocks are essential for its control and for the success of the citrus industry. The aim of this study was to determine the susceptibility of new citrus rootstocks with low HLB incidence to Phytophthora diseases. Thus, plants of several commercial and new citrus rootstocks originating in different breeding programs were inoculated with an isolate of P. nicotianae. Thirty days post inoculation (DPI), the damage of lesion length in stem was measured for each plant. These results displayed a different susceptibility response to the damage caused by P. nicotianae among the citrus rootstocks tested. Thus, eleven new citrus rootstocks (B11R3T25, B11R5T25, B11R5T49, B11R5T60, B11R5T64, N40R1T18, N40R1T19, N40R3T25, WGFT + 50-7, UFR-6, and CL-5146), which have not been previously studied against Phytophthora diseases, improved the tolerance effect of Carrizo citrange. Our findings provide useful information for citrus growers on rootstock selection to address incidence problems caused by Phytophthora spp.