Production of quality planting material in sweet orange -A success story

The production of quality planting material is a foundation of any fruit industry to survive for the healthy future of citrus industry. It is extremely mandatory to have budwood certification programme for growing healthy citrus orchards. Andhra Pradesh stands first in sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) and 2^nd in acid lime (Citrus aurantifolia) production by contributing 61.34% and 17.85 %, respectively, to the country’s production basket. Citrus Research Station, AICRP on Fruits (Citrus), Dr YSRHU, Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh) is the prime Institute responsible for the certification of citrus budwood and production of quality planting material in Andhra Pradesh. The efforts put forth by Tirupati centre in production of quality planting material of Sathgudi sweet orange of 93,115 Sathgudi budlings with total supply of 11,87,069 budlings to citrus growers of not only Andhra Pradesh, but also to the states like Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra speak about the far reaching consequences of this successful technology. Disease free planting material immensely helped in harnessing the increased yields and acceptability of farmers, consumers and exporters.