Effective Cutting Methods and Media for Hardwood Cuttings in `Sunaga Wase' Peaches

Abstract

This experiment was carried out to investigate the effective cutting methods and media for hardwood cuttings in `Sunaga Wase' peach (Prunus persica L.). Using 1-year-old peach stems out of winter pruning, the cutting stems were procurred through several steps on 16 Feb. 1995 and 1996. i) Cut 30 cm in length by pruning scissors and bundled to 10 stems; ii) 1-cm bottom part of cutting stem dipped into IBA (1000 ppm solution) for 5 s and then powdering with Captan WP; iii) upper part of cutting stem coated with Topsin paste; iv) standing the bundled cutting stems in the cutting bench filled with cutting media; v) the temperature maintained at 20 ± 1°C under the level of cutting media by bottom heating and at 5 to 10°C above the media level. Among the cutting media, vermiculite showed the highest rooting percentage, as much as 93.2%, followed by Jiffy pot and rockwool cube. High transplanting survival percentage under field conditions was obtained by the treatment of vermiculite of media + cutting duration for 35 days. Although the treatment of cutting duration for 55 days showed very high percentage of rooting, such as 96.4% in vermiculite, 78.3% in Jiffy pots, and 83.3% of rockwool cube, their percentage of nursery survival after transplanting were reduced remarkably less than 10% in nursery fields covered with black polyethylene film. The nursery trees obtained from each treatment were characteristically 136 to 146 cm in tree height and 22.9 to 26.8 cm in trunk diameter.