Fred Meintjies
www.fruitnet.com
Despite the ongoing focus on citrus black spot, South Africa’s citrus volumes to Europe actually increased significantly in 2015.
The South African citrus industry has been at great pains all season to point out how difficult and expensive it has become for them to trade in Western Europe, due to the measures relating to citrus black spot (CBS) disease they have to contend with.
Maura Maxwell
www.fruitnet.com
Producers in South America are counting the cost of the worst flooding in 50 years following weeks of heavy rain brought on by El Niño. Tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural production in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil have been affected.
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Jakkie (OPJ) Stander
Citrus Research International | University of Stellenbosch
E-mail: jakkie@sun.ac.za
Flowers are a critical determinate of eventual yield of perennial fruit trees. In the first two articles in this series of three covering the reproductive phenology of citrus, the focus was on elaborating the importance of flowers and the factors determining the prevalence thereof.
Jakkie (OPJ) Stander
Citrus Research International | Department of Horticultural Science, University of Stellenbosch
E-mail: jakkie@sun.ac.za
Citrus trees are perennial evergreens, which sustain a complex tree structure with one to three distinct annual vegetative growth flushes. After a sufficient induction period, with the onset of growth-promoting conditions during spring (increase in temperatures and sufficient water and mineral nutrient supply), flowers develop from buds on vegetative shoots that originated from vegetative shoots in the different growth flushes of the previous 12-month season.
Jakkie (OPJ) Stander
Citrus Research International | Department of Horticultural Science, University of Stellenbosch
E-mail: jakkie@sun.ac.za
Flowers are a critical determinate of eventual yield of perennial fruit trees. Therefore, an understanding of the underlying mechanisms and influencing factors, as well as the general phenology of flower development in citrus, is critically important to the sustainability of successful commercial citrus production.
Paul J.R. Cronjé
Citrus Research International | Department of Horticultural Science, Stellenbosch University
E-mail: paulcronje@sun.ac.za
Peteca of lemon is a postharvest physiological disorder resulting in the collapse of the oil glands. Subsequently, the oil leaks into the adjacent tissue and
causes a darkened depression. The occurrence can be severe, without any specific pre- or postharvest practises to employ to reduce the incidence.
Paul J. R. Cronje
Citrus Research International | Department of Horticultural Science, Stellenbosch UniversityOckert P. J. Stander and Karen I. Theron
Department of Horticultural Science, Stellenbosch University
Various citrus cultivars of ‘Navel’ and ‘Valencia’ orange [Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck], as well as mandarin and mandarin hybrids (Citrus reticulata Blanco) are prone to a preharvest physiological rind disorder, known as fruit splitting.
Similar disorders occur as fruit cracking and/or splitting in other commercially important horticultural crops, most notably in apple, apricot, cherry, grape, nectarine, prune, and tomato. Fruit splitting in citrus differs from other crops due to the unique morphology of a citrus fruit, consisting of the pulp and rind, which is made up of the spongy white internal layer, the albedo (mesocarp), and the external layer, the flavedo (exocarp).
Paul J.R. Cronje and Graham H. Barry
Citrus Research International | Department of Horticultural Science, Stellenbosch UniversityMarius Huysamer
Department of Horticultural Science, Stellenbosch University
The progressive postharvest disorder of ‘Nules Clementine’ mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco), referred to as rind breakdown (RBD), starts to develop during storage, about 3–5 weeks after harvest. Variation within the tree canopy, i.e. inside or outside canopy positions, as well as postharvest handling practices such as ethylene degreening, storage temperature and storage duration, were investigated for their influence on RBD incidence. Two experiments were conducted wherein fruit were subjected, in the first experiment, to ethylene degreening and a delay in commencement of cold storage (2004), and, in the second experiment, fruit were sampled from the inside and outside of the canopy and cold-stored at either −0.5 ◦C or 7.5◦C during 2005 and 2007.