Propagação vegetativa de faveleira (Cnidoscolus phyllacanthus (Mart.O Pax. et hoffm.) por estaquia.

Abstract

The specie Cnidoscolus phyllacanthus is a xerophilous plant used for restoring worn out areas, for human and animal food, and for medical purposes. It also has applications as firewood and low quality wood, as an energy source, among other uses. This work aimed to evaluate the effect of indolebutyric acid (IBA), two types of substrates and two different conditions of environment in the rooting process of C. phyllacanthus sticks. Two environment were used to carry out this work: one is composed by beds suspended under mesh with 50% of shading and with controlled irrigation system (6 daily sessions of tree minutes each one) and the other, composed by beds suspended located in the interior region of a mesh with the same luminosity retention percentage and with two daily irrigation sessions of 15 minutes each one. 186 days after planting the sticks, the following characters were analyzed: number of living sticks, number of rooted sticks, root dry weight (g), shoot dry weight (g) and total dry weight (g). C.phyllacanthus sticks treated with 3g/L of AIB provided higher root dry weight, regardless the substrate. Although not statistically significant, for all variables analyzed, the highest averages were observed in the substrate composed by 50% of soil, 30% of bovine manure and 20% of sand. The environmental conditions of the mesh were better to promote the rooting of the C.phyllacanthus sticks.