Budding of Current Season Seedlings of Pistacia vera L. During Different Times in Late Summer

Abstract

Budding of Pistacia vera L. seedling at the earlier stage of growth with a certain sex type scion is very important because P. vera vegetative growth stage is long and requires more time to produce fruit to determine the sex type of the trees. Therefore, the current experiment was carried out to determine the best time for budding current seedlings of P. vera during late summer. The budding times were 20 Aug., 1 Sept., 10 Sept., and 20 Sept in 2020, and the seedlings were between 5-6 months along budding times. The results revealed that the highest budding success (50%) was achieved from the seedlings budded on 20 September followed by those seedlings budded on 10 September (38.88%). While, budding success percentage was the lowest in the seedlings budded on 20 August and 1 September with the same ratio (27.77%). The longest shoot and the thicker shoot diameter (19.30 cm and 4 mm, respectively) were achieved in the seedlings which budded on 10 September. In contrast, shoot length was the shortest (3.93 cm) in seedlings that were budded on 20 August, and shoot diameter was almost similar (2.39, 2.23 and 2.72 mm) in all seedlings budded on 20 August, 1 September and 10 September, respectively. This study showed that 20 September was the best time for conducting budding of P. vera seedlings which were produced in nursery black bags in the current season.