Abstract: Both soil and leaf samples were collected from 181 red soil orchards of sweet orange
grafted on trifoliate orange[Poncirus trifoliata（L.）] rootstocks in Anyuan and Xunwu，the two biggest
citrus production counties in southern Jiangxi Province of China，and then analyzed for their nutrient
element contents in 2010 and 2011. The aim was to realize relationship between soil and leaf nutrient
elements and to provide the possibilities of formulated fertilization based on soil testing in sweet orange
orchards in red soil areas. The results showed that the contents of available soil nutrient elements such as
nitrogen（N），calcium（Ca），iron（Fe），magnesium（Mg）and zinc（Zn）in orchard soils could reflect，
to some extent，the contents of corresponding nutrients in citrus leaves. A significant positive correlation
（P < 0.05）was found between the contents of available Zn in soils and Zn contents in leaves in Anyuan
county in 2010. However，the contents of soil available potassium（K），phosphorus（P），copper（Cu）
and boron（B）correlated nonsignificantly with the contents of the corresponding nutrients in leaves. Therefore，formulated fertilization by soil testing is not suitable for sweet orange orchards in red soil areas.
It is suggested that formulated fertilization should be mainly based on leaf diagnosis and supplemented by
soil testing.

Key words: sweet orange, orchard, soil nutrient element, leaf nutrient element, correlation