Chinese Bulletin of Botany ›› 2019, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (4): 531-538.DOI: 10.11983/CBB19025

• TECHNIQUES AND METHODS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

An Effective Method for the Rooting of Tea Cuttings

Xiaomei Liu1,Lili Sun1,*(),Xiangdong Fu2,Hong Liao1   

  1. 1 Root Biology Center, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China
    2 Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
  • Received:2019-02-17 Accepted:2019-04-23 Online:2019-07-10 Published:2020-01-08
  • Contact: Lili Sun

Abstract: Tea (Camellia sinensis) is one of the most important beverage crops in the world. With the expanding cultivation area, the demand for tea seedlings is increasing. However, there are many problems with the traditional breeding method for tea plants using cuttings, such as low rooting rate, time consumption and difficulties to obtain materials. Therefore, optimizing the cutting method is of great importance for tea production. In this study, we first changed the culture medium to sponges and found that tea cuttings were able to generate new roots within 1 month on sponges, with rooting rate 32.2%. Second, we optimized the cutting materials by using fresh green tea branches in sponges, and the rooting potential of goung branch maintained with one bud and one leaf is better. In addition, we found that supplying rooting powder to sponges significantly promoted callus formation and new root generation from cuttings. In general, the most effective way was to apply 1.25 g∙L -1 rooting powder to cuttings for 48 h, for a rooting rate of 42.0%. We have established an effective rooting method for tea cuttings by optimizing the culture medium, cutting materials and adding optimal rooting powder. This method could shorten the rooting time, avoid the restriction of cutting materials, and thus effectively reduce the expense of tea cuttings, which has application prospects in tea production.

Key words: tea plant, cuttings, spongy culture, callus, rooting