Influence of rooting media, cutting types and watering frequency on nursery performance of long pepper (Piper cappense) at jimma

Abstract

Long pepper cuttings are traditionally planted in a trench & covered with plastic sheet to get large number of transplantable seedlings. This requires extra costs for nursery operation and maintenance that needs further research focus to fill the gap alleviated by identifying best growing media, suitable type of cutting type & identifying appropriate watering frequency. The present study was conducted at Jimma Agricultural Research center (JARC) to investigate the Influence of Rooting Media, Cutting Types and Watering Frequency on Nursery performance of Long pepper (Piper cappense) cuttings to identify best alternatives for production of adequate planting material. Four types of media, composed of sub soil (Ss), top soil(Ts), farm yard manure(FYM) and Fine sand with the following proportion, 2Top soil + 1Farm yard manure + 2Fine sand, 6Top soil + 3Farm yard manure + 2Fine sand, 1/3rd Key words: Media, soft wood, semi hard wood, hard wood and watering frequency SS upper + 2Top soil + 1Farm yard manure + 1Fine sand and 2Top soil + 1Farm yard manure + 1Fine sand. Data were collected for root and shoot parameters after 185 days. The highest average fresh root weight (30g) was recorded for watering frequency every three weeks, hard wood cutting grown in rooting media 1/3 top SS and 2TS:1FYM:1FS.The maximum number of roots per cutting (13) was produced by watering interval every week with soft wood cutting type. On the other hand under the interaction of media and cutting type the largest number of root per cutting (13) was produced by the same cutting type and grown in 6TS: 3FYM:2FS media proportion. Highly significant (P < 0.01) differences among interactions were observed for survival percent of stem cuttings. The highest survival percent of (83%, 78%) was recorded for watering frequency every week, soft wood cutting grown in rooting media 2TS:1FYM:2FS. Highest improvement in survival percent of cutting was recorded from soft wood cutting type, while the death rate of cuttings from hard wood cutting type was high. In general, the observed differences among the main effects soft wood could be due to its succulent part accumulation of growth hormone. The highest shoot diameter recorded for semi hard wood cutting type grown in all media, indicating that increased shoot girth probably reflects balanced allocation of assimilates between root and shoot system and availability of essential nutrients in the media and growth promoting substances produced in semi hard wood cutting types which are suitable for the cutting to develop vigorous shoots. Result from correlation analysis showed positive and highly significant ( p<0.01) association among root fresh weight and root dry weight and shoot fresh weight and dry shoot weight where as the parameter leaf area with survival rate is negatively non significant correlated but with shoot length were negatively and significantly correlated. Attention should also be given in selecting the cutting type on the stock plant while preparing the cutting