Abstract
The performance of Tissue Culture and Stem Cutting plants planted during different planting seasons showed that the application of fertilizers contributed significantly to produce maximum growth for the traits studied (culm length, culm diameter, no.of nodes, intermodal length and number of culms/clump). Supplementation of FYM with NPK at Site 2 raised during July-August 2006 produced encouraging results and the growth of Stem Cutting plants especially the culm length showed two times increase over Tissue Culture plants. Statistical analysis showed non-significant differences amongst all the traits studied for the Stem Cutting and Tissue Culture plants after three years of planting. The variability estimates revealed that the culm length for SC plants varied from 137.00 to 587.00 cm with a mean value of 381.00 cm compared to 92.90 to 235.80 cm with a mean of 173.17 cm observed for TC plants. The girth of SC plants ranged from 5.0 to 20.25 cm with a mean of 13.52 cm whereas the girth of TC plants ranged from 6.4 to 10.38 cm with a mean of 7.96 cm. The No. of nodes for SC plants varied from 12.50 to 27.00 with a mean of 21.93 compared to a mean of 13.02 recorded for No. of nodes for TC plants. The No. of culms/clump varied from 2.00 to 4.50 for SC plants with a mean of 3.01 compared to a range of 2.30 to 7.87 and mean of 3.81 recorded for TC plants. The inter-nodal length for SC plants varied from 9.75 to 24.67 with a mean value of 17.80 whereas the inter-nodal length for TC plants ranged from 6.70 to 11.87 with a mean of 8.46. The comparative assessment of SC and TC plants in these experimental plots with fertilizer treatments though reveals better performance of SC plants, the TC plants are expected to produce better results at later stage.
Keywords
Timber, Agroforestry, Ultraviolet rays, Erosion, Nodes, Re-greening