Grafting Crop Shoots on Bi-clonal Seedlings as a Potential Strategy for Clonal Multiplication in Tea
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BRIEF RESEARCH ARTICLE
Grafting Crop Shoots on Bi-clonal Seedlings as a Potential Strategy for Clonal Multiplication in Tea Ranjith Karunakaran1,2
•
R. Victor J. Ilango1
Received: 6 March 2019 / Accepted: 4 December 2019 Ó NAAS (National Academy of Agricultural Sciences) 2019
Abstract Tea is chiefly propagated by means of cuttings consisting of a leaf and an internode prepared from the aperiodic shoots of pruned bushes. However, multiplication of the newly released potential tea clones by propagation of cuttings is constrained by an inadequate number of mother bushes and time requisite for pruning recovery. Therefore, to address this constraint two experiments were conducted to evaluate the suitability of crop shoots as scion material with appropriate controls. First, crop shoots of the clone TRF-2 were grafted on rooted seedlings of BSS-1, BSS-2, and BSS-3. Next, crop shoots of the clone TRF-4 were grafted on non-rooted rootstocks of the clones UPASI-2, UPASI-6, UPASI-9, and UPASI26. The results revealed that grafting crop shoots as scions on BSS seedlings and non-rooted fresh rootstocks produced composite plants with superior vigor. However, an enormous reduction in graft success rate was found when crop shoots were grafted on non-rooted rootstocks. Also, significant variations were observed in plant vigor, depending upon the rootstock–scion combination. The crop shoots of TRF-2 grafted on BSS-1 seedlings and the crop shoots of TRF-4 grafted on the fresh rootstocks of UPASI-9 and UPASI-2 produced composite plants with superior vigor. Keywords Rootstock Graft compatibility Tea clones Cleft grafting Aperiodic shoots
Introduction Tea (Camellia sinensis (L) O. Kuntze) is one among the perennial cash crops of the world and covers about 3 million hectares of area under cultivation. India contributes to around 23% of the world’s total tea production and occupies the second position as the largest tea producer in terms of domestic and international requirements. Tea industry worldwide is currently facing constraints due to stagnation in productivity and decline in quality owing
& Ranjith Karunakaran [email protected] 1
Botany and Plant Improvement Division, UPASI Tea Research Foundation, Nirar Dam PO, Valparai, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 642 127, India
2
Institute of Plant Sciences, Agricultural Research Organization, Gilat Research Center, 85280 M. P. Negev, Israel
primarily to a substantial proportion of aging plantations [4, 5]. To overcome this problem, the approach of replanting the old unproductive seedling tea plantations with newly released potential tea clones is being recommended [9]. Tea is chiefly propagated by means of cuttings consisting of a leaf and an internode prepared from the aperiodic shoots of pruned bushes. However, multiplication of the newly released high-yielding and high-quality tea clones by this method is constrained by an inadequate number of mother bushes. The development of aperiodic shoots comprising 10–12 leaves from the pruned tea bushes will take about 120–150 days fr
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