Substantiation of research
Citrus maximus is an important and popular tropical fruit crops of coastal Bangladesh that play great role in ensuring both food security and nutritional demand of poor people of Bangladesh. But there is still a difference between its potential and actual yield due to unavailability of quality planting material during planting, poor management, water stress and trees beating to ignore summer crop, improper use of fertilizers, insecticides and poor storage. Fruit species propagated primarily by seeds and are often of poor quality. Extensive use of vegetative propagation methods would be the greatest single step for improvement of tropical fruit cultivation.
Research methods
Non-mist wooden frame polythene propagator was constructed following the design by Leakey et al. (1990). Juvenile shoots of Citrus maximus were collected from 2-years old stock plants and two-node stem cuttings were prepared and treated with 0% (control), 0.2%, 0.4% and 0.8% IBA solutions and were planted into perforated plastic trays filled with coarse sand following RCBD. The cuttings were watered once only just after setting and the propagator was kept under bamboo made shed. Rooting of cuttings completed within six weeks. Mean values for root number, root length and root diameter were calculated on experimental plot basis and analyzed.
Results so far
Rooting performance of cuttings of Citrus maximus was significantly influenced by application of IBA.Highest rooting percentage (65%) with 0.8% IBA, highest number of roots (6) with 0.2% IBA, longest root (8.6 cm) with 0.2% IBA and maximum diameter of root (2.2 mm) with 0.2% IBA were observed. Survival percentage of the cuttings was highest (70%) also with 0.2% IBA. Findings of the present study reveal that the studied species is highly amenable for clonal propagation by stem cuttings using non-mist propagator. 0.2% IBA treatment of stem cuttings may be recommended for mass production of quality cuttings.
Prof. dr. Md. Alamgir Kabir
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