Fertigation with Nitrogen and Phosphorus Improve Plant Growth, Root Growth, and Buddability of Containerized Citrus Nursery Plants.

Large-scale multiplication of quality planting material is needed to meet the huge demand of planting material in fruit crops. Little information is available on the effect of fertigation on rootstock growth, budding success, and buddling growth in containerized citrus nursery. The present studies were undertaken to study the effect of eight fertigation treatments viz. control (N₀P₀), N₆₀, N₈₀, N₁₀₀, N₀P₁₀₀, N₆₀P₁₀₀, N₈₀P₁₀₀, and N₁₀₀P₁₀₀ on the growth of rough lemon rootstock and subsequently budded three citrus varieties. Among the treatments, N₆₀P₁₀₀ significantly improved seedling height, diameter, leaf number, root growth, leaf area in rough lemon, Blood Red orange, Kinnow mandarin, and Daisy mandarin over the control. The stomatal conductance was higher with treatments N₆₀, N₈₀, N₆₀P₁₀₀, and N₈₀P₁₀₀. While higher photosynthetic rates were observed with N₆₀P₁₀₀ and N₈₀P_100, N₆₀P₁₀₀ also improved the budding success in Blood Red, Kinnow, and Daisy. Fertigation treatments increased the nutrient concentration in leaves of all the varieties. The principal component analysis revealed that plant height and diameter were positively correlated with root length, root diameter, root number, photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, and chlorophyll content in rough lemon. In all the varieties, the sprout length and diameter showed a positive correlation with leaf area, leaf number, root length, root diameter, fibrous root number, photosynthesis rate, stomatal conductance, and chlorophyll content. Among different treatments, N₆₀P₁₀₀ was the best treatment in improving the shoot growth, root growth, and physiological parameters of rough lemon rootstock. Besides, it also improved budding success and buddling growth in all three citrus varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]