THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE VACUUM-INFILTRATION METHOD FOR SATURATION OF PLANT OBJECTS OF TUBULAR-CAPILLARY STRUCTURE WITH VARIOUS MEDIA

Abstract

In crop production, the harvesting and use of cuttings of various fruit crops implies their saturation with various media to stimulate cuttings before germination or to increase moisture to the desired level. In this work, a vacuum-infiltration method is proposed for active saturation of plant objects of tubular capillary structure with various media. The advantage of this method is justified over the traditional method of passive soaking. As objects of research were used one-, two- and three-node cuttings with open cuts of apple-tree variety Bely Naliv, apricot variety Melitopolsky and grape variety Shevchenko. It is defined that vacuum-infiltration at a vacuum level of 550 mm Hg does not have a damaging effect on the cuttings, as evidenced by the viability and the time of development of the buds on the cuttings during their cultivation in phytotron conditions. The effectiveness of the active saturation method is shown in a comparative visual assessment of the intensity of staining of the cuttings after vacuum-infiltration and the soaking method. It is determined that the time of saturation of single-nodal cuttings of grapes with an aqueous solution of eosin by the method of vacuum-infiltration is up to 12 sec, while by the soaking method it takes up to 6 hours. It is illustrated the possibility of effective saturation of grape cuttings with solutions of sucrose and glycerin with concentration up to 50%. It is shown that the time of active saturation of cuttings with various solutions depends on their species structure and the number of buds. The proposed method of vacuum infiltration reduces the time of saturation of the plant’s captive parts with stimulating media, more than 10 times. It permits to restore the initial moisture of the cuttings after storage without the stage of soaking. The effective saturation of one-, two- and three-node grape cuttings with media of different viscosity by vacuum infiltration does not exceed 6 minutes, what allows the use of this method in cryobiology.

Keywords

• vacuum-infiltration method
• tubular-capillary structures
• cuttings of fruit and berry crops
• cryoprotectants.