EVALUATION THE EFFECTS OF INDOLEBUTERIC ACID AND FERTILIZER TREATMENTS ON ROOTING AND RELATED TRAITS OF LEAFY OLIVE CUTTINGS

The effects of IBA regulator and environmental stress (Fosamco fertilizer and irrigation periods) on leafy cuttings of olive cultivars were evaluated. The treatments were allocated to split plots in time and space arranged in a Randomized Complete Block Design with four replications. The main factor consisted of three fertilizing applications in irrigation periods of every week, every two weeks and every three weeks by Fosamco fertilizer (2.5 mg l-1 of effective gradient). The subfactors were five levels of indolbutric acid and three cultivars of olive (‘Mission’, ‘Zard’, ‘Roghani’) in a factorial arrangement. The time factor (sampling time) consisted of five removal periods of one week intervals from growing medium. Cuttings were planted in perlite after being treated by growth regulator and fungicide. The results of this study showed a significant effect of stress and growth regulator applications on all the measured traits in most cases. The highest number of roots and root length were obtained with 3 g l-1 of regulator application. However, the number of buds did not show any response to the increased concentration of growth regulators. In general ‘Zard’ cultivar had better performance in studied trait. The average of root numbers in ‘Zard’ cultivar was significantly more than that in oily cultivar. Also, ‘Zard’ cultivar had the highest and second highest average amount for root length and bud numbers, respectively. It could be concluded that remaining the cuttings for prolonged time in propagation bed had a positive effect on the evaluated traits.