Abstract:
The Cornelian cherry is one of those less common but, nevertheless, interesting fruit
species found in Serbia which can be used both for food and medicine. Due to a great
importance of Cornelian cherry fruits as safe food and a wide interest in growing this
fruit species, this research was focused on examining the production technique of quality
planting material of particularly large-fruit selections of Cornelian cherry in Serbia. In
the region and even beyond, there are no Cornelian cherry plantations due to a lack of
planting material. To that end, the best Cornelian cherry selections selected in Serbia
were grafted onto generative rootstocks of a Cornelian cherry in two periods: I (bud
grafting in August) and II (spring whip grafting in April ), and the success of grafting, the
effect of grafting period, and quality of produced nursery stock were assessed. The study
of five large-fruit genotypes (CPC16, APRANI, BACKA, R1 and PPC1) during two years
(2011 and 2012) showed that, on average, bud grafting in August (69.38%) was
statistically significantly more successful than whip grafting in April (25.33%). The
greatest grafting success was achieved in the period I with APRANI (83.62%) and
BACKA (76.42%), while the poorest success was with CPC16 (21.67%) in the period II.
On average, other examined parameters of young tree quality (height, diameter of plants,
number and length of formed roots) did not indicate any statistically significant
differences between the grafting periods. In this research, a technology was established
for producing quality young trees of the Cornelian cherry.
Keywords: Bud grafting, Large-fruit genotype, Whip grafting, Nursery stock
