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Microbudding in Citrus. AGRICULTURE & FOOD E-NEWSLETTER ISSN: 2581-

8317: Volume 05 - Issue 10 - October 2023

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 Microbudding in Citrus
Article ID: 44137
Nilakshi Bordoloi1
1Ph.D Scholar, Dept. of Fruit Science, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat.

Introduction
Citrus is propagated by both vegetative and sexual means. Commercial propagation methods vary from
species to species-Acid Lime and Rangpur lime by seed, sweet lime by layering and hardwood cuttings,
Persian lime by ground or air layering, lemon by cutting, sweet orange and Mandarin mostly by ‘T’ budding
and soft wood grafting. Micropropagation has also been standardized in Kinnow Mandarin, seedless lemon
cv. Kaghzi Kalan, Sweet orange, Pummelo. Recently, a new rapid method budding known as Microbudding
is gaining popularity.

Propagation through Microbudding

Fig: A. Procedure for Microbudding (Bordoloi et al., 2022). B. Microbudding steps:

microbudding and capping with a pipet tip, followed by cap removal after callusing. The
arrow indicates new scion growth (Skaria, M. 2000). B. Micro vs conventional budding one
month after Microbudding (Vijayakumari N, 2019).
Microbudding is a grafting technique done at a younger age, and because of apical hormonal dominance,
the resulting citrus trees grow faster and bear fruit at an earlier stage than traditional budding technique.
It was first developed by Dr. Mani Skaria at Kingsville Citrus Center, Texas A & M University, Texas, U.S.
In India, it was first adopted at ICAR-Central Citrus Research Institute, Nagpur (CCRI). The method has
been standardized in Citrus reticulata Blanco. (Nagpur Mandarin) on just 5-month-old citrus rootstocks.

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Around 15,000 Nagpur mandarin planting material in about 11-12 months and distributed to the farmers.
This has also been standardized in Rough Lemon, Rangpur Lime, Acid Lime, recently released varieties
like ‘Cutter’ Valencia, ‘Flame’ Grapefruit, etc., in many of the commercial Citrus species as well as exotic
cultivars (Vijayakumari et al. 2008). A review on citrus budding was highlighted briefly by Bordoloi et al.,
(2022).
Table: Microbudding performed in various Citrus species:
Sl no. Scion Rootstock Budding No. of days Reference
success (%) required for
sprouting (days)
1 Nagpur Rough Lemon 95.71 12 Vijayakumari N,
Mandarin 2019
2. Nagpur Rangpur Lime 92.41 13.40
Mandarin
3. Sweet Lime Rough Lemon 76.00 - Alam et al., 2006

4. Grapefruit cv. Rough Lemon 68.00 -

Sham bar
5. Mandarin cv. Rough Lemon 28.00 -
Feutrell's early
6. Coorg Rangpur Lime 49.96 16.57 Karunakaran et
Mandarin al., 2014

Advantages of Microbudding
Propagation through Microbudding ensures year-round multiplication of plants and make seedlings
available at lower cost than conventional budding techniques as the latter is season specific and takes
longer time to form a budded plants to be ready for planting than the former. Besides, different species
attain buddable age at different age. It is reported to take half of the time required in conventional T-
budding.
At CCRI the Shoot Tip Grafting and Microbudding techniques were dovetailed to produce promising,
disease free, marketable bud-grafts on five-month-old root stocks economically in a shorter period and
plants were supplied to farmers.
Standardization of micro budding on just 5 months old root stock is a significant milestone in the
propagation of Citrus trees that enables faster, low-cost, year-round multiplication which is a boon for
farmers and researchers (for disease investigation). Microbudding technology was explored by early market
release of promising indigenous and exotic citrus cultivars at CCRI, Nagpur. The field performance of
microbudded trees showed on par survival, growth, true to type character and precocity with a potential
for high density planting.
Microbudding technique has been performed for producing virus and virus like disease free planting
material (Vijayakumari N, 2019). Biological indexing is still the preferred technique used to confirm the
presence of most graft-transmissible pathogens in fruit trees including citrus. This indexing process
involves budding or grafting a fast-growing rootstock or an indicator seedling with the tissue from the test
plant. Indicator plants of Mexican lime, pineapple sweet orange, Etrog citron, and Troyer citrange were
microbudded with buds containing the above-mentioned viruses, respectively. After callusing and at least
four-week past microbudding, the bud growth was cut off to force new growth of the indicator plant. Early
signs of tatterleaf symptoms associated with chlorosis were visible 3 weeks after the emergence of new
growth in Troyer citrange plants inoculated with CTLV. The initial chlorotic symptoms were clearly visible
under a stereoscope. So far, the microbudding system was found more useful for the indexing of CTLV
compared to other pathogens. Experiments with CEVd showed early symptoms of leaf epinasty in Etrog
citron, however, the results were not consistent. Results indicate that the microbudding procedure can be
modified to apply for indexing other graft-transmissible pathogens of citrus. Since smaller plants are used,
this system is ideal and less cumbersome for growing the indicator plants in small growth chambers at an
optimum temperature for symptom expression.

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Microbudding several genetically modified Rio Red grapefruit explants on to rootstocks (Yang et al., 2000).
This enabled genetically engineered explants to grow as plants quicker, and it saved time and effort from
a tedious and often less successful attempt to induce roots in these explants. Production of less expensive
trees through microbudding opened up an opportunity to plant an ultra-high-density block at a
substantially lower cost. In Texas, microbudded trees have grown well in field conditions and some orange,
grapefruit, and lemon trees produced fruit in less than 2 years after Microbudding (Skaria et al., 2000).

Conclusion
The technique of Microbudding can be employed reliably and economically to produce healthy citrus
seedling for initial orchard setup at faster and cheaper way. Furthermore, besides the early orchard
establishment this technique may also reduce the time for biological indexing of virus and virus-like
diseases in citrus plants in general.

References
1. Alam, N., Naveed, F., Khan, M. M., Abbas, M. & Ahmad, S. (2006). Early age propagation of three commercial Citrus species
through Microbudding technique. Pakistan Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 43: 1-2.
2. Bordoloi, N., Wangchu, L., & Nimbolkar, P. K. Citrus Budding: Research Perspectives and Recent Trends.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nilakshi-
Bordoloi/publication/364733973_Citrus_Budding_Research_Perspectives_and_Recent_Trends/links/6358bb1a96e83c26eb565
36f/Citrus-Budding-Research-Perspectives-and-Recent-Trends.pdf
3. Karunakaran, G., Ravishankar, H., Sakthivel, T. and Samuel, D. K. (2014). Optimization of micro-budding technique in Coorg
Mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco). Indian Journal of Horticulture, 71(3): 311-314.
4. Skaria, M. (2000). A microbudding technique for biological indexing and ultra-high density planting of citrus. In International
Organization of Citrus Virologists Conference Proceedings (1957-2010) (Vol. 14, No. 14).
5. Vijayakumari, N. (2019). Micro Budding of Indigenous & Exotic Citrus Cultivars: A Boon to Indian Farmers to Shorten the
Citrus Nursery Phase. International Journal of Recent Scientific Research, 10(1): 30389- 30392.
6. Vijayakumari, N., Singh, S., Thote, S.G. (2008). Microbudding: a faster propagation technique in Citrus. Journal of Soils &
Crops, 18: 89-91.
7. Yang, Z. N., I. L. Ingelbrecht, E. Louzada, M. Skaria, and T. E. Mirkov 2000. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of the
commercially important grapefruit cultivar ‘Rio Red’ (Citrus paradisi Macf.). Plant Cell Repts. 19: 1203-1211.

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