Abstract

Mathematical models were developed, using 22 different genotypes of citrus, to estimate leaf area. The information of the relationship between leaf length and width (L/W)² for simple leaf blade form (eliptic, ovate, obovate, lanceolate); and length of the three folioles (L₂+L₃)/L₁ for a compound leaf (trifoliate leaves), was used with the purpose to separate group of similarities of leaf blade form and promote high accuracy of estimate. The best models presented an excellent precision with errors varying from 1.2 to 6.2 (%) and r² higher than 0.95 for the majority of the models tested. Considering a single leaf blade, the linear model (Y = β . L . W) presented the lower mean deviation and lower square deviation. For the compound leaves, the potential models are simple to use, since use only the information of length of central foliole L₁ (Y= β L₁^µ), although the use of linear models gave the best precision, as observed by using the model Y = β . L₁ . W₁. Furthermore the model might be used as a single model independent of the relation (L₂+L₃)/L₁∶ {Y=β⋅(L₁⋅W₁ + L2⋅W₂ + L₃⋅W₃), r² = 0.98}.

Key words: Citrus, compound leaf, hybrids, leaf area modeling.