CITRUS NURSERY SOURCE: Important Details About Newly Available Citrus Varieties

By Peter Chaires

There are presently two groups of University of Florida (UF) citrus varieties, licensed to Florida citrus nurseries via New Varieties Development & Management Corp. (NVDMC), the licensing designee of the Florida Department of Citrus. These include:

GROUP ONE

• N14-10 – Improved Hamlin with better internals
• OLL-DC-3-40 – Quality sweet orange with HLB tolerance
• OLL-DC-3-36 – Quality sweet orange with HLB tolerance
• C4-10-42 – Mandarin hybrid with HLB tolerance for juice blending or the fresh market
• RBA 13-18 – Mandarin hybrid primarily for juice blending
• Orange 14 – Rootstock that performs well under HLB pressure

Get more details on group one in the February 2025 Citrus Nursery Source article.

GROUP TWO

• KW-5-7 – Improved Dancy tangerine
• 18A-10-47 – Improved honey tangerine for citrus under protective screen (CUPS)
• N40-16-7-11 – Valencia with higher HLB tolerance
• N4016-11-7 – Red grapefruit with better field performance and fruit quality
• C7-12-18 – Mid-season, low-seeded mandarin hybrid for fresh market and juice blending
• C4-14-51 – HLB-tolerant, seedless, peelable tangelo
• KE-9-9 – Early-maturing, low-seeded mandarin hybrid primarily for CUPS
• STR-4-1 – Rootstock mutation of X-639 with greater HLB tolerance

Find more information on group two in the December 2025 Citrus Nursery Source article.

FLORIDA FOCUSED

The University of Florida, Florida Foundation Seed Producers, Florida Department of Citrus and NVDMC are united in the objective of moving promising varieties to the Florida citrus industry as expeditiously as possible and with minimal complexity. In keeping with this mission, the program restricts commercial propagations of this new material to Florida nurseries for the duration of the eight-year Florida exclusivity. Furthermore, as a means of supporting Florida citrus nurseries, the nursery license agreements permit dooryard sales. Dooryard propagations have grown increasingly important in recent years, contributing greatly to the viability of the citrus nursery segment.

REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

NVDMC’s master license agreement for the new UF varieties requires nurseries to ensure that each grower ordering trees first signs a grower agreement. The nursery must keep these agreements on file and provide them to NVDMC upon request.

The master license also requires regular reporting. NVDMC will acquire this information from the licensed nurseries. This includes (for each 12-month period ending April 30):

• The number of trees sold of each variety for commercial and trial/evaluation
• The number of trees or rooted cuttings in inventory at the beginning of the reporting period (includes mother trees, increase trees, commercial trees, etc.)
• The number of trees or rooted cuttings propagated
• The number of trees sold to dooryard and commercial growers. Nurseries must report sales to each sublicensed grower, including date of sale, quantity of trees and the grower’s physical address.
• The amount of trees or rooted cuttings kept in inventory for selling or use at a later time
• Nursery invoices covering these varieties must include the cultivar name and U.S. patent number, date of sale, sublicensed grower’s full name and physical and mailing addresses, quantity of each variety sold and GPS coordinates or parcel number where the material will be planted.

Some nurseries may not be accustomed to maintaining or sharing such information. It is important that participating nurseries plan and establish systems for efficient reporting. This will minimize the time and effort needed to meet the reporting requirements. NVDMC is exploring ways to assist with reporting requirements.

Peter Chaires is executive director of the New Varieties Development & Management Corp.