ROOTING ACACIA-MANGIUM CUTTINGS - EFFECTS OF AGE, WITHIN-SHOOT POSITION AND AUXIN TREATMENT

The possibilities of vegetatively propagating Acacia mangium through r ooted cuttings were examined, focusing on 3 main factors, namely: (i) the age of the donor plant, comparing 6-month-old seedlings to sprouts from a mature stump, (ii) the original within-shoot position of the c utting before collection and (iii) the auxin treatment applied to the cuttings. These 3 factors were shown to influence greatly the capacity of the cuttings for rooting. Thf best scores in terms of rooting rate s were obtained for the plant material collected from (i) the seedling s, (ii) the upper part of the shoot close to the terminal bud and (iii ) when treated with auxin. The only interaction confirmed by statistic al tests was between the age of the donor plant and the auxin treatmen t, with a greater auxin induced increment of the rooting rates for the cuttings from seedlings. Thf results obtained tend to demonstrate tha t, although capable of improvement by optimizing the investigated fact ors, the potential of Acacia mangium to be propagated by rooted cuttin gs remains rather limited, especially when starting from mature materi al.