The levels of incidence and severity of disease symptoms are a result of the host-pathogenenvironment integration. in this context, a favorable environment, in particular, depends on the level of humidity, intensity of solar radiation, luminosity and leaf wetness among other factors. on the other side, the magnitudes of these factors' expressions are dependent upon the plant's cycle and size, and possibly the crop alignment as well. In the present study, five properties distributed along the citrus agricultural belt of São Paulo were selected. With similar orchards and crop orientation going north-south, east-west, northeast-southwest and northwest-southeast, from which samples of 50 fruits from ten plants of the same central tree line were collected. These fruits were taken to a laboratory and analyzed for severity levels of citrus black spot (Guignardia citricarpa), production and juice quality. it was concluded that the fruits from crops in the east-west orientation presented lower symptom severity, while the north-south orientation, had the highest levels. Also, the farms located further south of São Paulo state, showed lower levels of the disease, probably due to the fact that such areas have shorter periods of disease occurrences. in relation to production, the north-south and east-west crop orientations produced the highest amount of boxes per plant, while the northwest-southeast and northeast-southwest had the lowest production levels. As for the juice quality, there was no concluding data to establish a defined standard in terms of ratio and ºBrix on the respective crop alignment. The relation between the latitude and ratio value was declared to be consistently lower in citrus orchards located further south in the state of Sao Paulo.
Citrus sinensis; Guignardia citricarpa; Phyllosticta citricarpa; production; planting line direction
