Grafting Crop Shoots on Bi-clonal Seedlings as a Potential Strategy for Clonal Multiplication in Tea

Tea is chiefly propagated by means of cuttings consisting of a leaf and an internode prepared from the aperiodic shoots of pruned bushes. However, multiplication of the newly released potential tea clones by propagation of cuttings is constrained by an inadequate number of mother bushes and time requisite for pruning recovery. Therefore, to address this constraint two experiments were conducted to evaluate the suitability of crop shoots as scion material with appropriate controls. First, crop shoots of the clone TRF-2 were grafted on rooted seedlings of BSS-1, BSS-2, and BSS-3. Next, crop shoots of the clone TRF-4 were grafted on non-rooted rootstocks of the clones UPASI-2, UPASI-6, UPASI-9, and UPASI-26. The results revealed that grafting crop shoots as scions on BSS seedlings and non-rooted fresh rootstocks produced composite plants with superior vigor. However, an enormous reduction in graft success rate was found when crop shoots were grafted on non-rooted rootstocks. Also, significant variations were observed in plant vigor, depending upon the rootstock–scion combination. The crop shoots of TRF-2 grafted on BSS-1 seedlings and the crop shoots of TRF-4 grafted on the fresh rootstocks of UPASI-9 and UPASI-2 produced composite plants with superior vigor. © 2019, NAAS (National Academy of Agricultural Sciences).