Influence of rooting media and number of nodes per stem cutting on nursery performance of vanilla (Vanilla planifolia Andr.)

Vanilla is the only edible fruit of the 35,000 orchid species in the family and one of the most expensive spices in the world for its high flavoring capacity. It is recently introduced spice to Ethiopia. Currently three accessions of vanilla (van1/93, van.2/05, van.3/04), introduced at different times are under adaptation trial at Teppi National Spices Research Center (TNSRC) and its neighboring areas, where they have shown promising performance. Rooting media and node number will provide the base line for the 5. Overview of cuttings after four month…………………………………........ 57 6. Overview of cuttings at the end of nursery work………………………........ 7. Root of Four node cutting planted on fine sand rooting media…………........ 58 8. Root of two node cutting grown on decomposed animal manure rooting media…………………………………………………………………………. 58 15 establishment of effective vanilla nursery. Therefore, the objectives of the study were to determine the appropriate rooting media and number of nodes per stem cutting for vegetative propagation of vanilla. A 6x4 factorial experiment arranged in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications was conducted at TNSRC from November 2011 to April 2012. Six different rooting media (forest soil, decomposed animal manure, fine sand, 1:1 mixture of forest soil: fine sand, 1:1 mixture of decomposed animal manure: fine sand and 1:1:1 mixture of forest soil: decomposed animal manure: fine sand) and four levels of node number (two, three, four, and five node cutting) were used in this experiment. The result revealed that the interaction between the two factors was significant (P<0.05) for all parameters studied except sprouting percentage and root number. The highest shoot length (57.6cm), shoot girth (0.43mm), shoot fresh weight (33.383g), shoot dry weight (4.16g),leaf number (9.2), leaf area (78.51cm2 ), leaf fresh weight (7.157g), leaf dry weight (2.127g)and root to shoot ratio(0.133g) were obtained from four node cuttings grown on a 1:1:1 mixture of forest soil: decomposed animal manure: fine sand rooting media, with the exception of the highest root length (17.5cm) and rooting percentage(99.3%) of cuttings obtained from the rooting media containing pure sand. In addition highest root fresh weight (1.16g), root volume (1.72 cm 3 ) and root dry weight (0.13g) were obtained from five nodal cuttings. Therefore by consider shortage of plant material and the results obtained from the present study we can conclude that propagation of vanilla stem cutting could be successfully attained by using cuttings of four node on 1:1:1 mixture of forest soil: decomposed animal manure: fine sand rooting media. However, post rooting evaluation of the cuttings including field performance after transplanting and overall bean quality need further study