ARTIFICIAL VEGETATIVE PROPAGATION

Layering: In layering a shoot of a parent plant is bent until it can be covered by soil. The tip of the shoot remains above ground. New roots and eventually a new plant will grow. These plants can be seperated. In mound layering the stem is pruned and the base of the plant is covered with soil. From the base, new shoots develop, which are separated from the parent plant, ad grown into a new plant. Many types of apples and gooseberries are grown using this method. Air layering is another type of layering in which branches of the plants cannot be bent to the ground. A piece of the branch is scraped (girdled) in this method and polythene or plastic sheet is used as cover to preserve moisture. Roots arise from the scraped part after a few weeks. This branch is then detached from the parent plant which grows into a new plant after plantation. Layering differs from cutting in that the developments of adventitious buds are induced before the stem is cut to form the new plant.

2. CUTTING In rose, sugar-cane, Coleus,

Bougainvillea, etc., this method is used to produce new plants. In this process stem cuttings with some nodes and internodes are placed in moist soil which gives rise to adventitious roots and a new plant subsequently. It is a very common method of vegetative propagation. Farmers divide up the rhizomes, tubers or roots stocks at the end of flowering or growing season. Each part grows into a separate plant in the following year. Root cuttings propagate some plants like dahlia.

3. GRAFTING

In horticultural practices this method is commonly used. In this method the cutting of a plant (scion) is attached to the stem of another rooted plant (stock). After some time the attached cutting becomes an integrated part of the rooted plant. The scion and stock are placed in such a way that no gap remains between them. Finally they become joined in such a way that their vascular systems are united. Usually the scion is of a plant having desirable characters like large sized fruits and the stock has good absorbing capacity. Because of the arrangement of their vascular bundles, grafting experiments are successful only in dicots and not in monocots. This method is commonly

applied to improve the variety of fruits like mango. Wax is used to cover the
place where grafting is being done. This is to avoid infection.

Tissue culture: this is the growth of a new plant in a cultured medium containing all the substances necessary for growth. This is done in a sterile medium and often in a laboratory. A cell tissue or organ may be used in propagation and is very advantageous in producing healthy clones. Small part of this tissue is put in another medium, which induces the formation of plantlets. The plantlets can be transplanted in soil or pots foe developing to maturity. This technique is also called micro propagation. This method is used in propagating plants like Asparagus, orchids, Chrysanthemum. This method allows us to grow whole plant from cells taken from various parts of the plant body.