Effect of Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria and IBA on Rooting of Cuttings in Kiwifruit ( Actinidia deliciosa Chev.)

The present study was conducted under a polyhouse with kiwifruit cuttings. The entire programme of the study was divided into two experiments comprising hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings. The experiments were laid out in Randomized Block Design, with three replications per treatment. Experiment I was carried out on hardwood cuttings of kiwifruit cultivar Allison and comprised of nine treatments, viz., T₁ (IBA 5000ppm), T₂ (Bacillus subtilis), T₃ (Bacillus licheniformis), T₄ (Bacillus subtilis + IBA 4000ppm), T₅ (Bacillus licheniformis + IBA 4000ppm), T₆ (Bacillus subtilis + IBA 3000ppm), T₇ (Bacillus licheniformis + IBA 3000ppm), T₈ (Bacillus subtilis + IBA 2000ppm) and T₉ (Bacillus licheniformis + IBA 2000ppm). In Experiment II, all the above-mentioned nine treatments were imposed on semi-hardwood cuttings of kiwifruit. Ttreatment IBA 5000ppm recorded best ischolar_main characteristics (per cent ischolar_mained cuttings, number of primary ischolar_mains secondary ischolar_mains, length of ischolar_mains total ischolar_main length, ischolar_main biomass); shoot characteristics (shoot length, shoot diameter, shoot biomass) and leaf characteristics (number of leaves and leaf area) in both hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings. This treatment also resulted in maximum net benefit per 100 cuttings in comparison to other treatments. Among the two types of cuttings studied, hardwood cuttings showed better results on ischolar_main characteristics. However, semi-hardwood cuttings gave better results on shoot and leaf characteristics.