GRAFTING SUCESS IN DIFFERENT COMBINATIONS OF SPECIES AND VARIETIES USED AS SCION AND THE ROOTSTOCK OF PASSION FRUIT PLANT

Brazil is the largest producer of passion fruit. But, in spite of its prominent position, life of passion fruit plant has been reduced mainly due to damage caused by root diseases. As grafting with native species is resistant to diseases, presenting an alternative of production, this research aimed to evaluate the success of grafting in the combinations of scion varieties and species of rootstocks of passion fruit plant. The study was conducted in screenhouse (50% shaded) at Acre Embrapa, Rio Branco, between September and December in 2007. The scion variety used for all treatments was the yellow passion fruit 'FB 100' and 'FB 200' from Flora Brazil (Araguari, MG) nursery and 5 other regional varieties (UFAC, Universidade Federal do Acre, Rio Branco-AC) and the rootstocks were Passiflora edulis (yellow passion fruit) (Cuiaba-MT), P alata, P edulis (purple passion fruit) and P quadrangularis (Guiratinga-MT), P serrato-digitata (IAC-Campinas/SP). The seeds were previously soaked in distilled water for about 24 h and then sown in plastic tubes (25x5cm) with Plantmax(@). The cleft at the top hypocotyledonary was the grafting method used, and the rootstocks had the following characteristics: three true leaves and seedling height variable (6 to 8 cm), 30 to 90 days after sowing. Seedlings were decapitated up to cotyledons with steel blade, which has been dipped in bleach to 70%, at each grafting performed. The grafts were obtained from whole seedlings, about 10 cm long, and the toilet of the leaves was made. The combination of better performance in relation to the living grafts were UFAC 07 on P edulis (purple passion fruit) and P alata, UFAC 38 on P edulis (yellow passion fruit), P edulis (purple passion fruit) and P alata, UFAC 64 on P serrato-digitata, with 100% of grafting success, while the combination of FB 100 on P alata had the worst performance, with low rate of success, not reaching 30%.