The Improvement Of Air Layering Technology And Its Application To The Vegetative Propagation Of Tea Seeding

In order to accelerate the rate of vegetative propagation of tea seeding and improve its survival rate, a new technology for tea vegetative propagation, which combined the air layering with cutting, was investigated. The root primaidial was conducted on the branch of tea tree by the air layering for some time. After the root primaidial had developed, the stem was cut off and then cultivated in vitro to develop the root system. In this article , the clone tea of "yingshuang"(Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze)was used as test materials. The feasibility of applying the air layering for tea vegetative propagation was verified by observing the changes of external morphology and the anatomical structure of tea stems. The influence factors on the development process of the callus tissue and root primordium and the conditions of culturing root of stems were optimize, thus a new vegetative propagation of tea seeding was primary formed. The results were showed as follows:1.The tea stems do not have the latent root primordium,the adventitious root of stems develops from the induced root primordium,occurres from some parenchyma cells of cambium or phloem,pericycle or cortex. The adventitious roots could be induced and then grown out from the bolded stems at above the wound of girdling before these stems were cut off, and these adventitious roots were much abundance and sturdy than that by the method of traditional cuttage. The callus inducted at the wound of girdling and the stem above the wound became bold . it also showed that the stem with smaller callus tissue and bolder was easier to take adventitious root.2. When the air layering was down, it should select the healthy and strong branch with the diameters of stem ranged from 0.25 to 0.28cm, girdle on the stem with the color of yellow-green or green, spray with accelerating rooting powder such as 100mg/l ABT-1 and then bound up. After 40~50 days by treatments, the epidermis uplifts or the white roots point were usually shown on the stem surface, thus the stems could be cut off the parent tree and planted in the matrix.3. The root of tea stems cultivating in the matrix was better than that in hydroponic. After cultivating in the matrix for 50-70 days, the roots can grow to full size, the total length of roots reached 114.15 cm, the total surface area of roots was 15.5 cm~2, and the root volume was 5.08 cm~3 and the survival rates of tea seeding could reach above 80%.