Ponkan mandarin grafted onto ‘Flying Dragon’ rootstock in ultra-high density plantingHarvesting is a laborious and expensive operation in citrus cultivation. The use of small-size trees induced by dwarfing rootstocks requires adjustments in the planting density in order to rapidly occupy the space in the orchard. The objective of this work was to evaluate plant growth and productive performance of ‘Ponkan’ mandarin grafted onto ‘Flying Dragon’ rootstock in different spacings up to ten years after planting. An experiment was carried out in the municipality of Chapecó, SC, with the following planting spacings: 1.0; 1.25; 1.5; 1.75;2.0 and 2.5 m between trees in the row, keeping 5.0 m between rows. Tree growth, fruit production, and economic viability of each planting spacing were evaluated up to the tenth year. Narrower spacings resulted in taller, wider and lessproductive trees. However, with narrower spacings, canopy volume, fruit production, and internal return rate were higher. In addition, the payback period was shorter. The results of this study showed that the planting spacing of 1.0 m x 5.0 m maximizes productivity with economic advantage over wider spacings in a 10-year-old orchard.
Index terms
Citrus reticulata;; Poncirus trifoliata;; dwarf plant;; cash flow
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