School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences - Theses

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    Vegetative propagation of Acacia melanoxylon R. Br. through root cuttings
    Summers, Jason ( 2000)
    A method of vegetative propagation of Acacia melanoxylon using root cuttings was trialed to identify the best treatment combinations. Ten individual trees from three distinct provenances were selected. The other factors were pre-treatments including hormones and season of collection of root cuttings. Provenances were from near Canberra and the East Gippsland and the Otways region of Victoria. The different media trialed included a commercial propagation mix, sand, and a mixture of perlite and vermiculite. Five different pre-treatments were investigated to determine if they boosted the number of shoots produced from a root cutting. The whole trial was repeated over four seasons in one year. Results showed that the provenance varied significantly in the number of shoots produced from root cuttings. One medium (Burnley Mix) also gave significantly better results than the other two media. One of the pretreatments the hormone (IBA) retarded shoot growth significantly. Season of collection had the most significant impact on shoot production. Cuttings set in autumn produced more than twice as many shoots as the cuttings set in the other seasons. A histological investigation was undertaken to determine the origin of the shoots. It was found that the cells originated from the vascular cambium region of the root sections. This thesis has demonstrated that mature Acacia melanoxylon trees can be vegetatively propagated successfully and produce morphologically juvenile plants. The method if further refined could produce the consistent results required to allow commercial propagation of Acacia melanoxylon.