This investigation was carried out in 1997 and 1998 seasons on 2 and 3-years old Washington Navel orange, Valencia orange and Balady mandarin budlings on five citrus rootstocks namely; avolkameriana, Troyer citrange, Rangpur lime, Cleopatra mandarin and sour orange grown at the Experimental Farm of Sakha Agricultural Research Station, Kafr El-Sheikh, Egypt where the soil is slightly saline alkaline clayey soil. The evaluation results indicated the superiority of a volkameriana and Rangpur lime as better rootstocks than sour orange for Valencia, Washington Navel oranges and Balady mandarin as scion varieties. The trees on these rootstocks are characterized by: Vigorous vegetative growth for the three scion varieties as indexed by growth rate, volume index, trunk cross sectional area and leaf area. Also, larger root system density with better horizontal and vertical fibrous root distribution than those on sour orange and other rootstocks. Moreover, trees on these rootstocks had higher leaf concentrations of proline, protein and total phenolic compounds but had lower carbohydrates while, leaf chlorophyll were not affected. Generally, the five tested rootstocks could be descendingly ar­ranged due to their effects on vegetative growth and root density and distribution under this study conditions as follow: (VM & RL), (TC & SO) and finally (CM)_ Accordingly, both rootstocks (VM & RL) may be consid­ered as suitable substitutes for sour orange in Egypt