ROOTING OF Fuchsia regia STEM CUTTINGS WITH DIFFERENT LENGTHS

Abstract

Fuchsia regia, called earring princess, is native to Brazil and cultivated as ornamental species in the south and southwest regions of this country. The demand for ornamental species has been increasing during last years, due to their use in landscape gardening. Techniques of vegetative propagation are thus frequently used to supply plant material. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the rooting of F. regia stem cuttings of several sizes. Semi-hardwood ramifications of F. regia were collected and cuttings with 7, 14 and 21 cm were prepared with cut obliquely at the base and straight above the last axilar bud. They were planted in plastic tubes with fine vermiculite. Experiment was carried out in a greenhouse under intermittent mist. After 40 days they were evaluated concerning with: percentage of rooted cuttings, number of roots and length of the three biggest roots, roots fresh and dry weight (g), percentage of cuttings with branches, number of branches per cutting and percentage of cuttings with retained leaves. The percentage of rooted cuttings were 97.08%, with no statistical difference among the treatments. Cuttings with 14 cm length were the best for average number of roots (29.69) and percentage of cuttings with buds (93.75%). It was concluded that the cutting length didn’t affect the rooting percentage and Fuchsia regia is considered an easy rooting specie.