Shamel: Bud Variation in Lemons 



79 



shape of lemons and the habit of growth 

 of the trees belonging to the different 

 strains. For instance, the bottleneck 

 shaped Eureka lemons are borne by 

 trees that are finely branched and have 

 very dense foliage characteristics easily 

 discernible to even the most casual 

 observer. The long, cylindrical Eureka 

 lemons are borne by trees having 

 a spreading habit of growth, with 

 large sharply pointed leaves, belonging 

 to an unproductive strain of this 

 variety. 



A frequent sport found in the trees 

 of all lemon varieties is variegated fruit 

 and foliage. Such variations have stripes 

 or sections of alternate white and green 

 colors, and the fruits are usually slightly 

 ridged. They occur as single fruits, or 

 as branch variations, and have been 

 successfully propagated in experimental 

 trials. The shade tree strain of Eureka 

 lemons produces fruit with very thick 

 rind, very coarse rag and but little 

 juice — so little, in fact, that in many 

 cases little or no juice can be extracted 

 by ordinary hand pressure. The pro- 

 ductive Eureka strain, on the other 

 hand, ^-ields fruit with thin rind, tender 

 rag and an abundance of juice, which is 

 easily squeezed out. 



Many other similar differences char- 

 acteristic of the fruits of the different 

 strains have been observed and rec- 

 orded. They have been proved to be of 

 fundamental importance in the produc- 

 tion of the established lemon orchards 

 of California. 



COMPARATIVE VALUE OF STRAINS 



The accurate determination of the 

 comparative value of the lemon strains 

 in commercial orchards of the lemon 

 varieties under investigation has been 

 the first consideration in these studies 

 up to this time. With reliable informa- 

 tion of this character at hand, a definite 

 idea of the comparative commercial 

 status of any orchard can be deter- 

 mined after the nirmber of trees of each 

 of the known strains in these orchards 

 has been found. 



In lemon growing, the season of pro- 

 duction of the crop is an important 

 factor in the profitableness of the busi- 

 ness. In some seasons of the year, e. g., 



the summer months, more lemons are 

 consumed than during the winter. For 

 this reason, the strains which produce 

 the bulk of their crops during the sum- 

 mer are usually more valuable than 

 those which produce their main crops 

 during the winter season. 



The productive strains, in every case 

 known, produce a higher percentage of 

 first grade or more valuable commer- 

 cial lemons than the unproductive 

 strains. For example, about 80% of 

 the crop of the trees of the productive 

 strain of the Eureka variety in the 

 performance record plots has been of 

 the best grade, while the unproductive 

 strains have produced only about 20% 

 of the best grade of fruit. 



A preliminary survey of the perform- 

 ance record data shows that there has 

 been a great difference in the value of 

 the production of the different strains of 

 the lemon varieties under similar condi- 

 tions during the entire period of obser- 

 vation. So great is this difference that 

 it frequently accounts for the success or 

 failure of the lemon orchards in Cali- 

 fornia, depending upon the proportion 

 of the different strains in the orchards. 

 It is a striking fact that in all of the un- 

 successful and unprofitable lemon or- 

 chards, to which our attention has been 

 called, we have discovered a large pro- 

 portion of undesirable strain trees, 

 reaching as high as 90% of the total 

 number of trees in some orchards. On 

 the other hand, the most profitable and 

 successful orchards studied have been 

 found to contain, without exception, a 

 large proportion of productive strain 

 trees. 



ORIGIN OF STRAINS 



The evidence that the strains of the 

 lemon varieties found in these investi- 

 gations have originated as bud varia- 

 tions may be mentioned under two 

 heads. First, individual fruit variations 

 or branches bearing several fruit varia- 

 tions, corresponding to all of the known 

 strains, have been found repeatedly in 

 standard type trees in the performance 

 record plots. Frequently, several strains 

 are represented by typical fruits and 

 foliage in the same tree grown from a 

 single bud. Second, many experimental 



