Nursery and field serial grafting of Ilex paraguariensis

Abstract

The long time required to produce seedlings and the formation of plantations with low-quality genetic material are problems that need to be solved in the culture of yerba mate. Grafting for new plants production or for replacement of mate plants canopy may overcome those restrictions. However, that technique still lacks better investigation, especially regarding adult genetic material. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the effect of serial grafting (subcultures), clones, grafting environments and gender of parent plants in the survival and vitality of yerba mate grafts. An experiment with seedlings in a nursery was conducted in order to evaluate 3 subcultures and 2 clones. In another experiment, field and nursery environments were compared for six clones (three male and three female). The survival and vitality of grafts were evaluated for both experiments every 35 days and at the 105^th day. The survival and vigor of grafts were affected by the clones and subcultures, there was a trend for the field ones to be superior to the nursery ones. Two subcultures were concluded to result in higher survival and vigor of yerba mate grafts, and those characteristics were concluded to be favored when grafting was directly conducted in the field and, especially, when the propagules came from female parent trees.