Comparative efficacy of different propagation techniques in guava

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to find out the relative efficacy of different budding or grafting methods in guava on two rootstocks during different months (February, July and November). The experimental material consisted of scion cultivar Allahabad Safeda. Five methods of propagation, viz. shield budding, patch budding, veneer grafting, wedge grafting and wedge grafting with polycap were tried on two rootstocks, namely L-49 and Local guava in open and under polyhouse conditions. The result exhibited significant variation with respect to number of days taken for sprouting, sprouting per cent, per cent bud/graft success, number of branchlets and leaf area per budded/grafted plant. The minimum number of days taken for bud sprouting was recorded in the treatment combination S2M5C2 (local guava seedling rootstock + wedge grafting with polycap under polyhouse) during February (9.17 days), followed by July (9.70 days) and November (12.56 days) months. Maximum sprouting was also recorded in the same treatment combination during November (96.08%), February (93.95%) and July (91.13%). The maximum graft/ bud survival was observed in the treatment S2M5C2 during November (94.85%) followed by February (92.84%) and July (89.64%) months. However, the minimum survival was noted in the treatment S1M1C1 (L-49 rootstock + shield budding under open conditions) when propagation was done during November (42.45%) preceded by February (45.46%) and July (51.89%) during both the years. Present results suggest that in guava highest graft take success was obtained by using wedge grafting along with polycap on local guava as rootstock under polyhouse conditions.