Propagation Vegetative Plants Part III # (Air Layerage Technique)

Air Layerage is a way of plant breeding by planting stems or branches that are rooted first before being cut and planted elsewhere.

Based on the experience of the practice we did in Vocational High School Bustanul Yatama, North Aceh, the advantages of the Air Layerage is easy to do, and the success rate is very high. In addition, the plants produced can inherit 100% of the nature of the parent tree.

In practice we do, we choose a branch or twig that has a length of 20-30 cm. Branches strapping, smooth and healthy with a light brown and green brown. In addition, the branches we selected were not too old or too young because such branches had only a small supply of food that inhibited the growth of roots that we Air Layerage.

In this Air Layerage practice we do it on mango trees. And we think this plant is very suitable in the Air Layerage because the stems are woody and are Gymnospermae plants. Because one of the requirements of plants that can be Air Layerage is dikotil plants, Gymnospermae plants and plants with woody stems.

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Air Layerage Steps

As for the grafting steps that we practice on the mango tree that is

Cutting/wounding branches or twigs that we would for Air Layerage using a sharp knife. The circular incision field is 2-3 times wide the diameter of the branch. Slicing performed just below the leaf buds because this is where the gathering of root-forming substances (rizokolin).
Peel the bark in the incision to look slimy cambium. Cambium we throw, the way rub it uses a blade and done carefully so as not to hurt the wooden tissue.
Leaving the incision for 2-7 days until drying and no more sap coming out.
After drying, we rub with root-growing hormone Rootone F, the way it is given a little water and stirred until it becomes a paste, then apply evenly, especially in the upper skin of the incision.
Next we wrap the grid field. The media we use are moss, coconut husk, soil mix and compost. The first thing to do is to increase the plastic sheet to the incision area, then tie the bottom to form a bag. Bond position at the bottom 5-6 cm below the incision area. After that, the water-moistened media is loaded into the plastic to fill the perimeter of the incision. Then plastic tidied, then tied in the middle and top.

Graft is very suitable to be done on fruit plants such as mango, orange, guava, litchi and plants with woody stems.

However, grafted plants have the disadvantage that the branching is not dense and not compact, and fruit productivity is limited. In addition, grafted plants do not have a robust system of cultivation because they do not have taillar roots, and their root fibers are also not overgrown. As a result the plant easily collapsed when blown strong winds and not strong facing drought during the dry season.