Root initiation of bougainvillea from cuttings using different rooting hormones

An experiment on stimulation of rooting of six Bougainvillea species using three different rooting hormones was conducted in the nursery, department of crop soil and pest management of the Federal University of Technology Akure, March to June, 2013. The experiment was laid out in Completely Block Design (CRD) and replicated three times. Data were collected on number of days to sprouting, plant height, stem girth, stem length, wet root weight, dry root weight, the number of leaves per cutting and length of longest roots and subjected to Analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine the level of significance and Tukey Test was used to separate the means. The results showed that the Indole -3-butyric acid and the coconut water had significant effect on the root emergence and root growth of Bougainvillea species compared to the other hormones used and the hard wood cuttings enhanced the rooting of the Bougainvillea compared to the semi –hard wood. Therefore root initiation in cuttings of Boungainvillea could be enhanced with Indole -3-butyric acid (IBA) or dipped in coconut water for 5 minutes and growth was also enhanced using the hard wood cuttings.