Bud take success, growth and foliage characters of different Prunus cultivars on Myrocal and Julior clonal rootstock

Abstract

The present study determined the effect of clonal rootstock of Prunus and their graft compatibility with peach, plum and apricot cultivars. Prunus scion cultivars were tongue grafted on respective Prunus clonal rootstocks in the last week of January, 2006. The study indicated that with respect to graft success, Myrocal exhibited higherbud take with apricot (66.67 %) than plums (63.89 %) with 1.15 and 1.20 stock/scion ratio, respectively. Julior exhibited higher bud take with plums (91.77 %) than peaches (86.11%) with 1.10 and 1.07 stock/scion ratio, respectively, whereas, Julior exhibited higher bud take with plum (91.77 %) than peaches (86.11 %) with 1.10 and 1.07 stock/scion ratio, respectively. Comparative studies indicate higher bud take of plum cvs Frontier (91.64 % ) and Red Beaut (91.84 %) on Julior as compared to Myrocal. Peach scion cultivars recorded more annual growth in terms of plant height (0.73 m) and plant spread (0.48 m x 0.62 m) than plum scion cultivars on Julior. Contrary to higher vigour recorded in nectarine scions compared to peach scions grafted on Julior, annual growth has been observed to be higher in peaches than in nectarines. Comparative studies indicate plant height, plant spread, trunk girth, internodal length and pruning weight of both plum cultivars to be higher on Myrocal than on Julior. With the present study, it is clear that Myrocal is more vigorous than Julior rootstock and both the rootstocks can be utilized for propagation with Prunus cultivars studied.