'Bitters', 'Carpenter' and 'Furr' trifoliate hybrids are three new citrus rootstocks released in August 2009 by the University of California Riverside. These three rootstocks are hybrids of Sunki mandarin x Swingle trifoliate orange. As rootstocks for citrus, they produce good quality fruit on small ('Bitters') or medium-large ('Carpenter' and 'Furr') trees. They all show good tolerance to Citrus tristeza virus (CTV), but vary in their tolerance of Phytophthora and nematodes. They all produce uniform seedlings due to high levels of nucellar embryony, and are graft compatible with sweet orange, Lisbon lemon and grapefruit. They also appear compatible with mandarins based on observation of 11 year-old satsuma and ‘Pixie’ trees. We are comparing their performance compared to ‘C-35’ as a standard and with ‘sour orange’. These are being grown with ‘Pixie’ and ‘Lisbon’ lemon scions. Sour orange grows well on calcareous, heavy soils and are less prone to nematodes. It turns out that mandarin and lemon are not prone to tristeza virus when grown on sour orange rootstock. Trees will be planted this coming spring. Stay tuned.
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