Water culture in Casuarina equisetifolia for mass clonal propagation

Though Casuarina equisetifolia is amenable for vegetative propagation, large scale operational clonal forestry programmes of this species are in its early stages of development in India. Since C. equisetifolia is a poor coppicer, getting juvenile materials for vegetative propagation or maintenance of juvenility is a serious problem. Development of a suitable cloning technique and induction of juvenility in this species will go a long way in establishing large scale plantations of end use specific clonal materials. A cost effective water culture technique of rooting could be developed for C. equisetifolia during the current study. Both phylloclad cuttings and individual ‘needles’ treated with 100 mgl-1 of IBA for 12 hours could be rooted in ordinary drinking water using this method. The success of rooting was up to 100 per cent for ‘needles’ and 80 per cent for sprigs. Plantlet development from rooted sprigs and individual ‘needles’ was 95 and 65 per cent respectively.