College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur-680 656, India
1Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi-680 653, India
The purpose of this study was to understand the effect of controlled circumstances and exogenous hormones on epicormic shoot development and rooting ability of teak epicormic shoots obtained from teak branch cuttings. The growing conditions had an effect on physiological and shoot quality parameters with an average of 8 to 10 harvestable shoots per branch cutting. Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) inhibited the production of epicormic shoots on branch cutting. Rooting percentage increased with increasing IBA concentration, whereas the combinations of indole butyric acid (IBA) and NAAencouraged the callusing. NAAwas inhibited either rooting or forming callus in teak cuttings. Shorter and thinner cuttings failed to produce roots as all rooting parameters were lower. The highest rooting percentage (67.40%) was exhibited in the cuttings of diameter sizes 5.50 to 7.00 mm, and the least (45.03%) was in 2.50 to 4.00 mm cuttings.
Epicormic shoot, Vegetative propagation, Auxin, Teak, Branch stick cutting
