Evaluation of different transplanting days on field survivability and growth attributes of mulberry mini clones under field conditions for Morus indica (V1)

Abstract

The present scenario of the sericulture sector demands innovative propagation techniques appropriate for a range of agro-climatic circumstances. Therefore, the current study was conducted at Forest College and Research Institute in Mettupalayam in order to verify the viability of mini clonal technology for rapid plantlet regeneration. Though conventional method of stem cutting propagation was popular and widely used to generate saplings. Due to constraints like non availability of source to generate cuttings, non- uniformity in growth was overcome by mini clonal technique. Mini clones 60DAP-AC (V1) registered higher field survival percentage of 93.67 percent than stem cuttings (82.25%) under field conditions. In V1, mini clones 60DAP-AC (V1) performed better in morphological attributes like plant height (128.84 cm) and inter-nodal distance (5.72 cm) and physiological attributes like leaf area (134.73 cm2) than plants propagated using regular stem cutting 90DAP-SC (V1) which recorded plant height (116.28cm) and inter-nodal distance (5.43 cm) and leaf area (130.60cm2) The main objective of the study was to validate field survival and growth parameters in main field condition with respect to different days of transplantation.