Evaluation of different doses of indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) on the rooting, survival and vegetative growth performance of hardwood cuttings of Flordaguard peach (Prunus persica L. Batch)

The present study was conducted on the evaluation of different doses of indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) on the rooting, survival and vegetative growth performance of hardwood cuttings of Flordaguard peach (Prunus persica L. Batch) during the years 2012-13 and 2013-14 at Punjab Agricultural University, Regional Research Station, Gurdaspur. The hardwood cuttings of 10 years old Flordaguard peach plant having 15-20cm in length and 0.8-1.2cm in diameter with 6-7 buds were prepared in the first fortnight of January .The basal portion of the cuttings was dipped in different doses of IBA viz. 1000ppm, 2000ppm, 3000ppm, 4000pppm, 5000ppm and control (without IBA treatment) for 1-2 minutes and planted in an open field conditions by following the recommended cultural practices for nursery raising. It was noticed that hardwood cuttings of Flordaguard peach treated with 3000ppm of IBA for 1- 2 minutes significantly took the minimum number of days to sprouting (7.05), rooting (6.0) with highest sprouting percentage (98.45%), survival percentage (90.55%), plant height(195.45cm), plant girth(10.50cm), number of branches(13.50) ,number of leaves (260.4), leaf length (19.55cm), leaf breadth (4.12cm), leaf weight (2.0gm), per-cent rooting (94.45%), number of roots (75.83), root length (38.0cm), root girth (0.98 cm) and root weight (13.50gm).Therefore, the application of 3000 ppm IBA was found to be best in terms of rooting, survival and vegeta-tive growth of hardwood cuttings of Flordaguard peach (Prunus persicaL. Batch). The beneficial effect of present work develop protocol which can be reliably used to develop the rootstock plant of Flordaguard which is resistant to nematodes through cutting which become ready for budding/grafting in the field in one year instead of two years as raised through seed