Amarre, rendimiento y calidad del fruto en naranja con aplicación de un complejo hormonal

the use of growth regulators improves fruit set in citrus; consequently, they increase crop productivity. the aim of the present research was to determine the effects of a hormonal complex of natural origin (auxins, gibberellins and cytokinins) on fruit set, yield and fruit quality of orange navel (citrus sinensis (l.) osb) cvs. "washington" and "thomson" of 15 years old trees. the study was conducted at ciudad victoria, tamaulipas, mexico, during 2004-2005. a split plot arrangement under a complete random block design with five treatments and four replications was used. results show significant differences among treatments and for the interaction treatment x cultivar in the number of fruits retained until 129 days after flowering and in the percentage of fruit set. the hormonal complex at a dose that includes 32.2 ppm of auxins, 32.2 ppm of gibberellins and 83.2 ppm of cytokinins plus 48.3 g l-1 show the greater effect at increasing fruit set, up to 1.2%.