Abstract:
Plant growth regulators (PGRs) are important to facilitate root formation and firm plant establishment hence used in vegetative propagation for many years. Farmers use natural alternative compounds to induce rooting of cuttings. The present study was conducted to identify the e ect of gel on root formation of stem ff Aloe vera cuttings and air layering of plants. Three experiments were conducted to compare A. vera gel with commercially available PGR for root induction of semi hard wood cuttings( , softwood cuttings ( spp.) and air layering plants Citrus aurantifolia) Coleus ( ). Average root length, number of roots and root vigour were Syzygium jambos recorded as root traits. E fect of PGR and gel on root traits was not f Aloe vera significantly di ferent for and . However, e fect of PGR was f f C.aurantifolia S.jambos significantlydi erentonroottraitscomparedtocuttingsdidnotreceiveeither ff A.vera gel or PGR. Therefore, synthetic PGRs can be replaced by gel, a natural A. vera alternativerootinducingsubstance,forsemihardwoodcuttingsof and C.aurantifolia air layering of but not for softwood cuttings of . These finding S. jambos Coleus spp could be used in developing natural root inducing substance and resolving and reducing the risk of chemical toxicity in plants due to PGRs.
