Morphological Characterization of Citrus Leaves (Citrus species) under Sub-tropical Conditions of Punjab, India

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during 2019-2021 at Sri Guru Granth Sahib World University, Fatehgarh sahib, Punjab to study the morphological characterization of citrus leaves (Citrus species) under sub-tropical conditions of Punjab. For morphological studies, leaves samples collected from the Citrus orchard. Samples were randomly collected from 10 leaves samples which were randomly collected from 5 plants in order to obtain a representative sample. All leaves sample were observed for integrity and absence of dust and insect contamination. The leaves of six different citrus species were used for the morphological characterization. Morphological characters of citrus accessions were observed on basis of UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) descriptors. The experimental results revealed that there were significant variations for morphological characterization in different citrus species. There are no variations in vegetative life cycle, leaf division, leaf colour, leaf lamina attachment in lime, lemon, pummelo, mandarin, grapefruit and sweet orange leaves. Vegetative life cycle was evergreen and leaf division was found to be simple in all the six citrus species. However, maximum mean leaf lamina length, leaf lamina width and leaf lamina length to width ratio was recorded in pummelo followed by grapefruit and mandarin. The maximum leaf area was observed in pummelo which was statistically at par with grapefruit, mandarin, sweet orange, lemon. Thus, there was no significant variation morphological characterization among citrus leaves.