Vegetative Propagation of Jasminum officinale through Cuttings with Different Types of Media

Abstract

J. officinale is commonly known as Saman pichcha in Sri Lanka. It belongs to family Oleaceae. It is a vigorous, twining deciduous climber with sharply pointed pinnate leaves. Jasminum officinale is a medicinally and commercially important plant, producing a diverse array of bioactive compounds including alkaloids, coumarins, flavonoids, tannins, terpenoides, emodine, steroids, essential oil and saponins. As an herbal medicine, it is used in dermatology as either an antiseptic or anti-inflammatory agent. Despite its economic and therapeutic importance, the propagation of Jasminum officinale through conventional cuttings is often constrained by slow sprouting and a relatively low success rate. Therefore, with the objective of developing a suitable cutting propagation technique for Jasminum officinale was carried-out at the University of Colombo Institute for Agro-Technology and Rural Sciences, Hambantota, Sri Lanka. Different types of stem cuttings of shoot apices, softwood, semi-hardwood and hardwood was tested in different potting media of pure sand, pure coir dust and sand with coir dust at the ratio of parts by volume 1:1(v/v) under controlled environmental conditions. The experiment was arranged in Complete Randomize Design (CRD) with two factor factorial arrangement having twelve treatment combinations and four replications. Each replication contained three experimental units. Survival, rooting, shoot length, number of roots and root weight were recorded and statistical analysis was done by SAS 9.1.3 package. The study demonstrated that Jasminum officinale shoot apices and hardwood cuttings exhibited the highest survival rates when planted in a mixture of sand with coir dust or in coir dust alone, whereas semi-hardwood cuttings in sand showed the lowest survival. Rooting was 100% in shoot apices planted in sand: coir dust (1:1) and coir dust media, with the highest root numbers observed in these treatments, while cuttings in sand alone generally produced fewer roots. These results indicate that a sand and coir dust (1:1) medium provides optimal conditions for survival, rooting, and growth, making it suitable for the mass propagation of J. officinale.