Establishment and Early Regeneration of Stem Cuttings from Chicken Weed (<I>Portulaca quadrifida</I> L.) as Influenced by Soil Types

Abstract

Differences in the ability of soil are a requirement for early regeneration of a plant. It was a pot experiment carried out at Sokoto in the Sudano Sahelian agro-ecological Zone of Nigeria. The objective was to investigate the regenerative ability of stem cuttings of Chicken weed on different soil type as a strategy for the weed control. The experimental set up was 3 × 7 factorial arrangement in a Completely Randomized Design. The treatments consisted of seven stem cuttings types namely (NLA-D - node leaf attached at distal stem location, NLR-D - node leaf removed from distal stem location, NLA-P- node leaf attached at proximal stem location, NLR-P- node leaf removed from proximal stem location, IN-D - internodes at distal stem location, IN-P- internodes from proximal stem location and SRA- stem roots attached) and three soil textural class (Sandy, Silty clay and Loamy sand). Result revealed that Silty clay recorded highest number of survived plants. Plant height, number of leaves, nodes, internodes and internodes length were greatly favoured by sandy soil. Loamy sand supported the earliness to leaf emergence and flowering. NLA-D supported the early regeneration of the plant in all stem cuttings tested, but earliness to leaf emergence and flowering was better with NLAP. This finding gave information that Chicken weed regenerate profusely and control measures should be administers to save target crop from yield losses.

Keywords: distal, proximal, stem cuttings, soil textural class, regeneration