Production of Vegetative Propagules of <I>Taxus baccata</I> Linn. through Rooting of Cuttings

Abstract

'Taxol', extracted from the leaves and bark of Taxus bacctaa Linn. is as an anti-cancer drug, which is effective in breast and ovarian cancer. Due to its over exploitation, the occurrence of plants of this species has reduced to a great extent in Uttarakhand. Further, as the trees of this species are dioecious and found distantly apart from each other in nature, the chances of seed setting and their natural regeneration are very poor. In such a situation the species may face the chances of extinction if sutiable measures for its clonal multiplication and conservation are not timely undertaken. Keeping this in view work on multiplication of T. baccata via rooting of cuttings was under taken since 1998 at Forest Research Centre, Kalika, Ranikhet. Shoot cuttings treated with 10,000 ppm Indole-3-Butyric Acid (IBA) mixed with tale gave 29%-72.9% rooting. A total number of 76,863 plantlets were produced through rooting of cuttings by FRC, Kalika in the past eight years. About 2.0 ha hedge garden has been established using the clonally prpagated material. It is expected that this hedge garden will provide sufficient vegetative material for further propagation of this species. Apart from this, the centre has also established a field trial (6.0 ha) using the clonally propagated material nearby to this centre during 1998-2006 to assess the clones for various parameters.