POSITION OF THE BUD ON THE BUD STICK ON SUCCESS OF BUD GRAFT AND GROWTH Hevea brasiliensis (Muel Arg)

Abstract

Budgrafting is currently the most popular method of propogation of rubber. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of the budwood on bud grafting success, sprouting and the scion growth. In the first part, the positional effect of individual buds was observed using brown budwood of two clones. There was no regular pattern in grafting success but, after a few successful grafts, there were one or two unsuccessful ones. Also, there were a certain percentage of dormant buds. Sprouting time also did not show any correlation with the position of the bud. The duration was different for two clones, 20 days for PB 217 and 60 days for clone PB 255. The shoot originating height was tested in the second part of this study using green shoots. Some bush nurseries were pollarded at 50 cm and 180 cm of clones RRIC 100 and RRIC 121. The differences were varied between the shoots of two original heights. However, the source bush trees were about 2-3 years old and therefore, these results are according to the expectation.