Grafting methods and time in pomegranate (Punica granatum) under semi-arid agro-climatic condition of Maharashtra

Abstract

Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) is one of the important fruit crops grown on commercial scale in Deccan Plateau of India and is gaining a lot of popularity worldwide in recent years owing to its high economic, nutraceutical and therapeutic values (Marathe et al. 2010). It is mainly propagated by air layering in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Unlike other perennial fruit crops, multistem training system is very common in pomegranate (Chandra et al. 2008). Recently, wilt has emerged as an important threat in major pomegranate growing belts of India and to combat this problem neither any standard grafting technique nor suitable rootstock is available. In fruit crops, wedge graft specifically offers very high graft success with greater stability than the other grafting techniques tried due to the instant full balance between the stock and the scion (Tabora and Atienza 2006, Selvi et al. 2008, Somkumar et al. 2009). But, this method was not tested in pomegranate especially for commercial cultivars. Therefore, an attempt was made to standardize grafting method and time in Bhagawa cultivar of pomegranate.