Plant Propogation and Nursery Management

Course Overview

The propagation of plants is one of the fundamental occupations of growing plants by human beings since time immemorial. Civilization might have started when ancient man learnt to plant and grow different kinds of plants, which fulfilled nutritional and other allied needs of human beings and their animals. Our cultivated plants originated mainly by direct selection from wild species (e.g. lima bean, tomato, barley and rice), hybridization between species, accompanied by changes in chromosome number (e.g. maize, wheat, pear, strawberry and prunes) and group of plants occur naturally as rare monstrosities(e.g. cabbage, broccoli and Brussels’ sprouts).
This progress in plant improvement would have been of little significance, without methods whereby improved forms could have been maintained in cultivation. Most cultivated plants either would have lost or reverted to less desirable forms unless they are propagated under controlled conditions that perceive the unique characteristic which make them useful.
The ever increasing demand of fruit plants necessitates the need for improved propagation techniques. Tree breeding and propagation techniques serve as an important tool in fruit crops improvement programme. Fruit plants do not come true, when raised from seeds and therefore, these plants are generally raised through vegetative methods of propagation, either on their own roots by cutting or layering techniques or on the roots of other plants (rootstocks) by budding, grafting or by more advanced methods of propagation i.e. micropropagation techniques. The most of fruit plants are raised on rootstocks rather than on their own roots because growing of fruit trees on rootstocks has many advantages. New dimensions are made in the field of plant propagation in general and horticultural plants in particular. For instance, invention of glass houses, mist propagation, hybrid seed production technology, micro-grafting, rooting co-factors in the rooting of cuttings, micropropagation, epicotyl grafting in mango, side veneer grafting in mango, stooling in apple, mango, guava and litchi and bottom heat technique in rooting of cuttings are new techniques in the field of propagation of horticultural crops in the last century.