author(s)
Atish R Kurhe, Debashish Hota, Ruchi Verma and Ajay Kumar Karna

abstract
Asexual propagation of pomegranate is highly confined to hardwood cutting but there is a grate scope of air layering method to exploit its potential. To understand this, an investigation was carried out at the student instructional field, department of Horticulture, School of Agricultural sciences, G. H. Raisoni University Saikheda, Saunsar, Distt- Chhindwara (M.P.) during rainy season of year 2021-22. The treatment consists of application of IBA @0 ppm, 300 ppm, 400 ppm, 500 ppm along with composition of soil, vermicompost, Azospirillum in combination. The study revealed that for establishment of rooting and success of pomegranate air layers under sub- tropical condition of Chhindwara, highly influenced by different growing media and IBA concentration. Minimum days for rooting (32.25), maximum rooting percentage (93.29%), number of secondary roots (63.80), number of primary roots (35.53), survival percentage of layers (84.09%) in air layer of Pomegranate was observed with IBA @500 ppm and media composition of soil + vermicompost + Azospirillum compared to control. The increase root density in air layer facilitating better phenotypic growth which suggest that the seedling prepared from this combination will show low mortality in the field condition along with it, it got cleared from our experiment that, lower concentration of IBA is also useful to produce greater roots, which may reduce the cost of cultivation of farmers in field.