Vietnam masters technology to create seedless citrus fruit varieties

Vietnamese scientists have successfully applied biotechnology to create seedless citrus fruit varieties with high yield and guaranteed quality.

Seedless oranges.

Dr. Do Nang Vinh, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Agricultural Genetics Institute, said that our country is considered one of the centers of origin of many citrus fruit species with very favorable natural conditions for the development of the orange, tangerine, and grapefruit industry.

However, most citrus fruit varieties in our country are still traditional, naturally selected, unimproved varieties, with low and unstable quality, many-seeded fruits, fragmented production, and low commodity value.

“For many years, our country has had to import oranges and tangerines from China, the US, Australia, and South Africa at very high prices. The country has not yet established a system of disease-free citrus varieties from the central to the grassroots level. Therefore, research on the application of modern biotechnology and genetics to the selection and breeding of citrus fruit trees is very necessary,” said Dr. Vinh.

Carrying out the assigned tasks, according to Dr. Vinh, over the past years, the Institute of Agricultural Genetics has researched and applied biotechnology to improve citrus fruit varieties and deploy seedless varieties into production, initially achieving positive results, contributing to solving many scientific and practical problems, creating a foundation for the development of the orange, tangerine and grapefruit industry in our country in the coming period.

According to Dr. Vinh, from the research results, scientists have created and maintained a group of superior varieties, parent trees in greenhouses to transfer to localities and domestic companies. This is a large, abundant group of disease-free varieties, with high yield and quality potential, seedless, enough varieties to supply for industrial-scale orange development.

“We have also used the method of crossbreeding tetraploid varieties with diploid varieties to create hundreds of different hybrid triploid lines. Some of the triploid grapefruit lines obtained have shown high hybrid advantage, growing and developing much stronger than the parent varieties, and the fruit is completely seedless,” said Dr. Vinh.

Seedless orange varieties with high yield and good quality are being grown in many provinces and cities across the country.

According to Dr. Vinh, Vietnam has now produced seedless, disease-free orange varieties such as V2, BH, C36, No. 9,... which have common characteristics of higher productivity and quality than native varieties. In addition, these varieties have very different ripening times, including early ripening varieties in late September and early October, mid-season ripening in November, December, January and late ripening in February and March. V2 variety ripens late and can keep fruit on the tree until April and May. With the above varieties, the orange industry can provide fresh fruit and juice for consumption for about 9 months a year.

“Our research results have been adopted, implemented and replicated by many businesses and farmers in major orange growing regions in the country on thousands of hectares of plantations in Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Thanh Hoa, Hoa Binh, Bac Giang, Yen Bai... Many households have high incomes from 500 million VND to over 1 billion VND/ha,” said Dr. Vinh.

According to Thanhnien.vn