Yield, packout and fruit quality results from four lemon cultivar trials in California

We established four lemon cultivar trials in California in 2015. Trial locations included the cooler San Joaquin Valley, and Coastal region, and the warmer inland Southern California, and the California desert. Cultivars evaluated included ‘Limoneira 8A Lisbon’, low-seeded ‘Limoneira 8A IR1 Lisbon’, ‘Walker Lisbon’, Corona Foothills’, ‘Limonero Fino 49’, and ‘Yen Ben’. Rootstocks varied by location. In the cooler locations, ‘Walker Lisbon’ had the greatest yield, followed closely by ‘Limoneira 8A Lisbon’. In warmer areas, ‘Corona Foothills,’ ‘Limonero Fino 49’, ‘Limoneira 8A Lisbon’ and ‘Walker Lisbon’ had the greatest yield. Yields of low-seeded ‘Limoneira 8A IR1 were 20 to 50% less, depending on location, than its seeded counterpart and yields of ‘Yen Ben’ were poor at every location because of smaller tree size. In some cases, the yield differences may have been due to incompatibility between the cultivar and rootstock, or to effects of soil pH. Fruit size of ‘Limoneira 8A IR1 Lisbon’ were often larger than the others, while fruit of ‘Yen Ben’ were often quite small. There were minor differences in fruit quality among the cultivars, except for ‘Yen Ben’ that had smoother and thinner peel.