ASEXUAL PROPAGATION OF MOST PROMISING GENOTYPES OF JOJOBA SIMMONDSIA CHINENSIS

Propagation of jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis) by direct seeding has genetic heterogeneity and about half of the seedlings may be males. Plantation with asexual propagules, though expensive, but it saves time to replant plants of known sex with high production. Vegetative propagation through layering, grafting, cuttings, tissue culture are even successful in jojoba. The current study was initiated to find out appropriate time of grafting and most responsive jojoba genotypefor asexual propagation.The female plants of five promising jojoba genotypes i.e. BRJ-5, BRJ-10, BRJ-22, BRJ-24 and BRJ-46 propagated through grafting, in the months of September and March during the year 2015-16 and 2016-17. The pooled analysis of the data revealed that the grafting practiced in the month of September performed better than in the month of March. The September grafting resulted in longer sprouts (18.49 cm) with more grafting success (74.43%) than that practiced in March. However, sprouts from March grafting took fewerdays to sprout (52.56) than that of September grafting (57.35 days). As far as the genotypeswas concerned, BRJ-22 surpassed theothers in taking minimum days (41.45) to sprout; attaining maximum sprout length (21.49 cm) and giving maximum success percentage (82.35). The study indicated that the optimum time of grafting for jojoba is the month of September and BRJ- 22 is the best suited strain for grafting.