Rooting of cuttings of the wild Indian almond tree (Sterculia foetida) enhanced by the application of indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) under leafy and non-leafy conditions

Vegetative propagation is one of the important conservation means of wild, native, and threatened tree species. The experiment finds out the opportunities of rooting of leafy and non-leafy branch cuttings of Sterculia foetida with different concentration of IBA in a non-mist propagator. Five treatments were used for this experiment. The treatments were T0 (control), T1 (0.2% IBA), T2 (0.4% IBA), T3 (0.6% IBA) and T4 (0.8% IBA). The experiment revealed the importance using IBA treatments rather than the types of cuttings used. The experiment showed that the highest rooting percent was observed in 0.8% IBA concentration and lowest rooting percent was observed in control in both leafy and non-leafy condition. Rooting success varied among the IBA treatments from 33.1% to 86.2% in leafy and 34.5 to 82.6% in non-leafy cuttings. The two way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed no significant difference (p > 0.05) among type of cuttings (leafless / leafy) but it showed significant difference (p < 0.05) among the treatments in rooting parameters (rooting success, root number per cuttings and average root length). The results also exposed sprouting success varied in leafy (32.8-84.1%) and (31.5-75.6%) in non-leafy branch cutting among the treatments. The two way ANOVA showed no significant difference among the cutting types (p > 0.05) but there were significant differences (p < 0.05) among the treatments in sprouting parameters (sprouting percent and leaf number per cutting) except number of shoot per cutting (1.4-2.5 in leafy and 1.1-2.6 in non-leafy) (p > 0.05). The overall survival of rooted cutting was higher in 0.8% IBA concentration (66.6 in leafy and 69.3% in non-leafy cuttings) and lower in control. The two way ANOVA also showed significant differences on survival of rooted cutting among the treatments but no significant difference between leafy and non-leafy cuttings. Tukey post-hoc test showed the comparisons of different mean values of treatments of rooting success, sprouting success of rooted cuttings and overall survival. NMDS ordination plot showed rooting and sprouting success parameters and how the parameters of leafy and non-leafy cutting shifted from each other. On the basis of this study, 0.8% IBA may be applied for rooting of cuttings of Sterculia foetida.