International Journal of Horticulture, 2024, Vol.14, No.1, 11-17 http://hortherbpublisher.com/index.php/ijh 11 Research Report Open Access Effect of Scion Varieties and Wrapping Materials on the Success of Tongue Grafting on Apple (Malus spp.) in Jumla, Nepal Dharma Prasad Chapai 1, Sisam Gautam1 , Madhav Dhital 2, Karishma Bhusal 1, Rabin Nepal 1, Aayush Rijal 1 1 Faculty of Agriculture, Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur, Chitwan, 44209, Nepal 2 Department of Horticulture, Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur, Chitwan, 44209, Nepal Corresponding email: sisamgautam097@gmail.com International Journal of Horticulture, 2024, Vol.14, No.1 doi: 10.5376/ijh.2024.14.0002 Received: 05 Jan., 2024 Accepted: 26 Jan., 2024 Published: 08 Feb., 2024 Copyright © 2024 Chapai et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Chapai D.P., Gautam S., Dhital M., Bhusal K., Nepal R., and Rijal A., 2024, Effect of scion varieties and wrapping materials on the success of tongue grafting on apple (Malus spp.) in Jumla, Nepal, International Journal of Horticulture, 14(1): 11-17 (doi: 10.5376/ijh.2024.14.0002) Abstract This study was conducted at Chandannath municipality, Jumla to study the effect of different scion varieties and wrapping materials on the success of tongue grafting on Apple (Malus spp.) from March to July, 2023. For this experiment, four scion varieties of apple i.e. Fuji, Royal Delicious, Vance Delicious, and Red Chief were grafted on Edy Mayal rootstock by using two different wrapping materials (Polyethylene plastic and Grafting tape). The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Royal Delicious was found statistically significant for days to sprout and the number of leaves was on par with Red Chief and Vance Delicious. Royal Delicious showed the minimum days to sprouting (47.3 days) maximum number of leaves (18.50) and minimum sprout length (31.45 cm). In addition, graft success was found to be significant for scion variety at a 10% level of significance. The maximum graft success was observed on both Red Chief and Royal Delicious (96.67%) while was low on the Vance Delicious variety (76.67%). Grafting tape was found to be superior to polyethylene plastic in terms of number of leaves. The graft union tied with grafting tape developed more leaves on scion (18.25) compared to the other tied with polyethylene plastic (16.91) at final observation. No interaction effect was observed at all parameters. Based on the results of this study, Royal Delicious variety is the best scion variety for tongue grafting and grafting tape is the best wrapping material under the climatic conditions of Jumla district. Keywords Grafting; Graft success; Scion varieties; Wrapping materials Introduction Apple (Malus spp., 2n=34) is one of the high-value cash crops of Nepal, belonging to the family Rosaceae (Potter et al., 2002). Apples have numerous health benefits due to the phytochemicals present in apples (Boyer and Liu, 2004). The productive area, production, and yield of Apple in Nepal are 6,245 ha, 52,753 Mt, and 8.45 Mt/ha respectively while that of Jumla are 1,454 ha, 13,958 Mt, and 9.6 Mt/ha respectively (MoALD, 2023). The Nepalese government formally introduced apple cultivation in Jumla in 1967 BS, recognizing the region's geographical and climatological suitability and comparative advantage. Apple production in Jumla generates a gross margin of NPR 109,615.48 or approximately USD 1000 per hectare of land, indicating that cultivating apples is a lucrative business in the district (Sapkota et al., 2020). Major apple varieties cultivated in Jumla district are mostly the Delicious varieties. These varieties include Red Delicious, Royal Delicious, and Golden Delicious (Atreya and Kafle, 2016). Apple propagation can be done through seed or vegetative methods. Propagation through seed does not result in true to type in fruit plants as seeds are heterozygous in nature (Iqbal and Singh, 2020). The major propagation methods of apples include budding, layering, and grafting (Singh et al., 2019). Grafting has the advantage that it is possible to propagate the same genotype and to obtain clones of parent plant (Petri et al., 2019). Different grafting techniques are used in commercial apple sapling production, but tongue and cleft grafting are widely used (Iqbal and Singh, 2020). Tongue grafting is the best-suited method with a high success rate (Vinayak et al., 2023). Grafting means combining and fusing two parts of the plant to allow it to develop as a single plant (Ak et al., 2021). To propagate a scion onto a rooting system, rootstocks are used to gain consistency and precocity in the fruiting part (Ersoy et al., 2010).
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