Abstract

The experiment was conducted at Al-Rabba Agricultural Research Station (31°27′57.34″N, 35°740′984.0″E), North to Karak city. It was designed to study the impact of time of grafting of different olive cultivars using K18 olive as rootstock for them. Seven olive cultivars were selected (Nabali Baladi, Frontoio, Grosadi, Rassei, Manzanillo, Nasohi and K18). The K18 cultivar was used as the control, at which scion of K18 grafted on the K18 rootstock. Two factors, olive cultivars in addition to two different grafting times, late January and mid-March, were arranged in randomized complete block design replicated three times. Results showed that, different times of grafting significantly affected all parameters studied, except number of leaves. Significant differences were observed among cultivars for all variables studied, except for number of sprouts per grafting. The time of grafting Results showed that maximum sprouting percentage (73.8%), number of sprouts (4.1), shoot length (12.23 cm), shoot diameter (2.56 mm), leaves per shoot (17.05) and minimum days to sprouting (26.6) were recorded in olive trees grafted in mid-March. While trees grafted on late January take higher number of days to sprout (32.7), minimum sprouting percentage (67.7%) and shoot diameter (2.19 mm). The cultivars performance results showed that maximum sprouting percentage (71.8%), shoot length (11.48 cm), leaves per shoot (17.43), lower days to sprouting (28.5) and shoot diameter (2.06 mm) were attained by the cultivar Nabali Baladi, while Rassei showed lower sprouting percentage (62.7%), leaves per shoot (12.80) and maximum days to sprouting (30.1). It was concluded that mid-March is the optimum time for grafting of olive cultivars, specifically Nabali Baladi in this area.

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