Propagation of Ornamental Plants
18(4): 131-138, 2018
INTER- AND INTRA- GENETIC VARIATION ON ROOTING ABILITY OF ILEX AQUIFOLIUM L. VARIETIES AND CULTIVARS
Maria Tsaktsira1, Athanasios Alevropoulos1, Parthena Tsoulpha1, Vassilis Scaltsoyiannes1, Apostolos Scaltsoyiannes1*, and Ivan Iliev2
1 Laboratory of Forest Genetic and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece, *E-mail: skaltsoy@for.auth.gr 2 University of Forestry, 10 Kliment Ohridski blvd., Sofia 1797, Bulgaria
Ilex aquifolium L. and its cultivars are widely known for their use as decorative branches and landscape plants attracting commercial interest. In the present study, cuttings of five ornamental female varieties (four cultivars and one, variety were investigated for their rooting ability depending on the season and application of different auxin concentrations of IBA and NAA. Rooting ranged widely from 0 to 94.44%. For ‘Argentea Marginata’, ‘J. C. van Tol’, and var. Hellas, autumn promoted rooting. Spring was favourable for the other two cultivars. Inter-genetic variation of rooting was exhibited among the studied varieties and cultivars. ‘Agrifolio Commune’ showed higher rates of rooting. For the other varieties and cultivars, high rooting success was achieved with 0.2% NAA for ‘Argentea Marginata’ and ‘J. C. van Tol’. Effect of genotype (intra-genetic variation) on rooting was recorded for twelve genotypes of ‘Agrifolio Commune’. For many of the tested genotypes, significantly (p < 0.05) high rooting percentages were observed without the use of auxins. Genotype 4 performed the best in all treatments. These findings suggest that varieties of I. aquifolium can easily be cloned on a mass scale and exploited commercially.
Key words: clonal propagation, English holly, genotypes, genetic variation, ornamental cultivars, rooting
|