Citriculture: Sustaining Quality Production

Citrus is one of the most traded and thoroughly researched fruit crops globally due to its commercial cultivation in more than 140 countries. Citrus fruits are distinguished from other fruit crops due to their high nutritive and therapeutic values, however, sustaining quality production amidst challenges such as climate change, Huanglongbing disease expanding inter-continentally, rootstock vulnerability etc. has become a formidable challenge.
Areawide and crop-wide use of biostimulants and microbe-assisted production system have imparted much greater sustainability to citriculture against a variety of stresses. The optimum use of soil nutrient stock and its interaction towards elevated crop performance are other key components for the development of sustainable citriculture. There are increased concerns regarding the development of agro-techniques (rootstock alternative and constraint-based balanced fertilization coupled with optimized irrigation) aiding in fruit quality development and having a cascading effect on citrus fruits' shelf-life. However, despite these breakthroughs, citriculture still faces many challenges that currently need solutions.

This Research Topic aims to highlight significant findings in citriculture and how their implementation can improve the competitiveness of the end product towards developing a more robust citrus industry. Insights on new agronomical advancements will be highlighted in this article collection. Cutting-edge interventions in soil-plant-water-nutrient manipulations with a better understanding of their crosstalk, rootstock and cultivars performance, novel microbe-assisted crop health management models can be proposed. Multifarious studies on exploiting different microbial niches of citrus and their influence on fruit yield and quality could provide critical scientific breakthroughs regarding soil-plant health bioprospecting.

The goal of the current Research Topic is to summarize recent novel research results, insights, and scientific perspectives on specific sectors focusing upon the following issues of citriculture:
• Plant nutrition and rootstock options for fruit quality development.
• Options for meeting crop nutrient and irrigation requirements.
• Developing microbe-assisted crop production systems.
• Relation between pre-harvest agricultural practices and post-harvest quality of citrus fruits.

We welcome all types of articles, such as original research articles, method papers, comprehensive reviews, mini-reviews, perspective articles, and thought-provoking opinions. We hope that a series of studies will provide readers with a better overview of the new advances in citriculture and suggest new avenues of research in this important field.

Keywords: soil, nutrient management, rootstocks, microbes, quality, post-harvest, citrus

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.