Water soaking and benzyladenine treatment for higher grafting success in grapevine

Abstract

The grafting of grapevines has become essential to overcome biotic and abiotic stresses. Also, stimulating the grafting union's rapid formation is the key to grafting success. This investigation was an attempt to study the effect of removing growth inhibitors through soaking of scion wood in water for 24 hours versus adding growth stimulation through fast dipping in 250 ppm benzyl adenine (BA) for 30 seconds before grafting, on the grafting success of Flame Seedless and Early Sweet scions (Vitis vinifera) grafted onto Freedom rootstock (Vitis champinii x 1613C) in addition to the control treatment. Water soaking was the best and followed by the treatment of 250 ppm BA, which significantly improved the grafting success of both cultivars. Grafting success was positively associated with increasing callus formation at the grafting zone, accompanied by the highest total indols content, the lowest total phenols content and peroxidase activity above and below the grafting zone. However, water soaking significantly increased total indols and decreased total phenols content of the ungrafted cuttings. This study suggests that applying water soaking to grape scion before grafting is an environmentally friendly, sustainable and alternative practice for synthetic growth regulators to improve grafted cuttings success.