See the latest answer to citrus trunk injection questions from Tom Johnson, owner of TJ BioTech, for Florida citrus growers.
We shared the first Q&A with Tom Johnson, which had to do with injections in the rootstock versus the scion. Now, inquiring minds want to know how early varieties like Hamlins have responded to citrus trunk injections aimed at combating citrus greening. See the response from a Citrus Industry article below.
Citrus Trunk Injection Answers: Early Varieties
The second question in the citrus trunk injection series of Q&As concerns whether early varieties like Hamlin have shown a positive response to injection applications. To sum it up, Johnson maintains blocks of early varieties have all shown positive responses. See the full answer:
Q: “There have been questions about the effectiveness of ReMedium TI® injections on early varieties like Hamlins. What have you seen from the data collected this past season?”
Tom Johnson A: “The early varieties respond well to ReMedium TI® injection. We received data from a grower that had three separate blocks of Hamlins. Each block was about 70 acres. The trees on average are 6 to 9 years old. Each responded somewhat differently, and that is no doubt a function of the beginning root health of the trees. The production of the 2023–24 harvest was compared to the previous year harvest of 2022–23.
The blocks all responded positively as follows:
Block 1: 69.97 acres, produced 8,926 boxes in 2022–23. After first injection of ReMedium TI®, the production increased to 13,837 boxes in 2023–24 or a 55.02% increase.
Block 2: 66.50 acres, produced 3,599 boxes in 2022–23. After the first injection of ReMedium TI®, the production increased to 10,655 boxes in 2023–24 or a 196.05% increase.
Block 3: 66.01 acres, produced 4,324 boxes in 2022–23. After the first injection of ReMedium TI®, the production increased to 11,291 boxes or a 161.12% increase.
The average increase of the three blocks consisting of 202.48 acres was a 112.37% yield increase.
In addition to the yield increase, the Brix increased 7.15% year-over-year and the pounds solids per box was up 8.3% year-over-year.
It is worth noting that Block 1 was the best producing block in 2022–23, but the increase of 4,911 boxes of harvested fruit was a similar increase to the lower-producing blocks. The point is that while the percentages vary, the recovery rate is similar even on better-producing blocks.
There is no doubt that production increases are directly related to the root loss that must be recovered to get full production gains. These trees were able to direct the increase in photosynthetic energy into fruit production instead of primarily root repair. I believe this is great news for the upcoming year.
The increase in tree health from ReMedium TI® injection in year one may have been allocated more to root recovery, depending on root damage, and these numbers show the great potential for yield increase this coming year.”
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