Abstract: The variety trend of fresh citrus fruit is easy peeling, seedless, strong flavour and aromatic.More than one hundred new cultivars have been released in the world in the past 30 years via bud sport selection, cross and other breeding channels. The new cultivars from the bud sport mainly belong to three types,
i. e. Satsuma mandarin, navel orange and Clementine mandarin. They formed group of cultivars respectively with 4 - 6 months long harvesting time. Crossing breeding has led to more than 70 cultivars ( strains) , however, they shared mainly a few parents such as the mono2embryonic Clementine mandarin, cytoplasmic male sterile Satsuma mandarin and Dancy red tangerine. Newly released rootstocks are mainly hybrids of trifoliate orange and sour tangerine both originated from China. Comparatively, the breeding work for processing purpose is slower than that for fresh fruit. Biotechnology, especially embryo rescue, and protoplast fusion etc. have greatly promoted the citrus breeding.

Key words: Citrus, Variety, Breeding technique