Techniques for accelerating of scion growth in pummelo grafting (citrus maxima (burm.) merr.)

Background and Objective: Pummelo can be propagated by using many methods including seedling, cutting, air layering, grafting and culturing tissue. One of them is driven by the technique of accelerating scion growth. This study aimed to find out the proper scion growth acceleration techniques for growing the grafted scion. Materials and Methods: The research was conducted from March-June, 2017. This study used Randomized Block Design (RBD) with 6 treatments and 4 replications including B0 (no treatment), BAL (bending the rootstock above the inserted scion), BAP (cutting off the rootstock 2 cm above the inserted scion), BAK (cutting half the rootstock 4 cm above the inserted scion), BAR (cutting half of the rootstock 4 cm above the inserted scion and bending it) and BAPL (cutting the rootstock 20 cm above the inserted scion and bending it). The obtained observation data were analyzed by using F-test (5%). If there was a significant effect, then LSD test (5%) was conducted. Results: The results showed that cutting the rootstock above the inserted scion and bending the rootstock above the inserted scion had significantly accelerated the growth of the scion of grafted Pummelo plants compared to other treatments. Bending the rootstock above the inserted scion resulted in the longest scion length at the end of the observation (90 days) by 15.2 cm, compared to cutting the rootstock above the inserted scion which resulted smallest growth of 98%, less than bending the rootstock for length of 8.96 cm. Conclusion: The treatment of cutting and bending the rootstock above the grafting area accelerates the rupture of the buds of the pummelo plants resulted from the grafting compared to other treatments.