Abstract:
Tinospora cordifolia (Willd.) Miers and
Tinospora sinensis (Lour.) Merr. belong to family
Menispermaceae and known by different common names such as ‘
Guduchi’, ‘
Gulvel’ and
‘Giloy’. The genus has the plethora of health benefits described in ancient scripts and traditional systems of medicine especially its stem. The drug
Guduchi is the major ingredients of about 68
Ayurvedic formulations and demand of this drug has been increased up to 2000 to 5000 MT with 9.1% annual growth rate. Nevertheless, natural populations of both the species are dwindling due to indiscriminate harvesting. The huge surge in demand provides ample scope for scaling up the commercial cultivation of these plants. In the present investigation, propagation through stem cuttings was studied for developing protocol pertaining to mass multiplication. Effect of different concentrations of IBA on stem cuttings after 30 DAP and 45 DAP was studied using design RBD with four replications for both these species. The stem cuttings of
T. cordifolia treated with 100 ppm IBA (T
1) exhibited significant rooting percentage i.e. 83.75±3.75
a. However, in
T. sinensis, 63.75±2.39
a percent rooting was recorded in treatment control (T
0) after 45 DAP. The maximum
and minimum shoot lengths were recorded in treatment T
1 (104.15±7.84 cm.) and T
0 (48.159±15.58 cm.) respectively and the maximum numbers of roots (4.25±0.25) and root length (15.42±1.09 cm) was slightly higher in treatment T
1 but significant differences in mean value were not recorded. The average minimum and maximum growth speed were reported 2.33 cm/day to 5.1 cm/day respectively in
T. cordifolia cuttings during the present investigation. In
T. sinensis, the maximum rooting percentage was recorded in control T
0 (63.75±2.39) followed by treatment T
1 (56.25±8.26). Increased rooting (16.25%) was observed in 30 DAP to 45 DAP. The number of sprouted shoots was higher in control T
0 (1.72±0.11). The maximum number of roots was recorded in control T
0 (5.5±0.48a). The fresh root biomass (0.85±0.00 g.) and dry root biomass (0.29±0.00 g.) were found significant in control T
0 (Table 4).