Abstract:
Heen Bovitiya an endemic plant species to Sri
Lanka which has been widely used in managing of Diabetes
mellitus. This plant is also important as and under -utilized ornamental flowering herb
propargated mainly through seeds and rarely by vegetative means. Hence, it is vital to
develop a mass propagation protocol by employing stem cutting and to generate
uniform planting materials for commercial needs. Therefore, this experiment was
carried at the plant nurseries of Seethawaka (agroecological zone) botanic garden to
evaluate the effects of different potting media BAP) on rooting of
stem cuttings.Trials were conducted with three different types of potting media (Factor
1)of sand (T1), sand : soil at 1:1 (T2) and soil : sand : charcoal 1:1:1 (T3). Then, BAP
solution (Factor 2) was prepared (5mg/l of concentration) and first half was sprayed in
solution form (L1), where as remainder treatments stem cuttings bases were dipped
with hormone slurry (L2). Experiments were arranged in factorial CRD manner with
thirty replicates and response were collected after two weeks of planting. The results
indicated that hormone application and potting media had significant interactions on
the production of shoots per stem cutting (P < 0.05)although,less with the root traits
(p>0.05). Overall, T5 produced significantly higher the number of shoots (7 0.38)
along with root numbers (6+0.18) and root length (7+0.2cm), suggesting that the
potting media soil: sand (1:1)application with BAP spray produced best response
than the other treatments.
