Stenting: A Technique for Rapid Multiplication of Peach (Prunus persica L. Batsch) Plants

The peach (Prunus persica L. Batsch) is the third most important fruit crop grown commercially after apple and pear in the temperate zones of world with total production of 20.0 million MT (USDA, 2016). In India, peach cultivation is confined to the warm temperate and sub-tropical parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttrakhand, parts of Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. In Punjab, peach cultivation is making headway with the introduction of low chilling, early ripening and superior quality cultivars from Florida and Texas. The varieties like Partap, Shan-iPunjab, Florida Prince and Earligrande have become very popular and are grown commercially in Punjab over an area of 1763 ha with an annual production of 31318 MT (Anonymous, 2016). However, the limited availability of sufficient planting material is a major constraint for the slow pace of area coverage under peach in this region. Peach is generally propagated through tongue grafting and T-budding using ‘Sharbati’ or ‘Fordaguard’ seedlings as a rootstock. It takes almost two years to develop a saleable plant by following existing way of plant propagation. Stenting is a method of rapid multiplication of plants (Van De Pol, 1982). The word stenting is derived from Dutch word ‘stenting’ which means ‘to stem’. It is a combination of ‘stekken’ means ‘to strike a cutting’ and ‘enter’ means ‘to graft’. In this method cutting and grafting is performed simultaneously. The scion is grafted onto nonrooted rootstock cuttings. The formation of International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 8 (2017) pp. 1449-1453 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com