A Study of Rooting Characteristics and Anatomical Structure of Feijoa Cuttings

Softwood and 1-year-old hardwood from 4-year-old mother trees of feijoa cultivar ‘Unique’ were used to study the rooting capacity of cuttings during their development. The result showed that the rooting of softwood cuttings was better than that of hardwood cuttings. The secondary structure of stems and the development process of adventitious root were observed by means of paraffin section and microscopy on feijoa cuttings. The result of the observation showed that the adventitious root primordium of feijoa cuttings is a type of induced root primordium. This adventitious root primordium originated from the junction of the vascular cambium and pith rays. There were cyclical and sequential sclerenchyma cells in the phloem and no root primordium in the stems. The adventitious roots of cuttings generated from the edge of the cut section to 0.1-2 cm above the cut. These structural features may be one of the main reasons that our feijoa cuttings showed a low rooting rate.