Vegetative Propagation: A Unique Technique of Improving Plants Growth

Vegetative propagation is any form of asexual reproduction occurring in plants in which a new plant grows from a fragment of the parent plant. Different methods of propagation can be used for plants because they respond differently. Based on plant growing uniformly, increasing the production of these plants, their resistance to pest and diseases, early bearing of fruits and having some certain traits in the new generated plants, various techniques of propagation have been designed for it. Plants can be propagated through sexual and asexual methods. Sexual one involves the use of seeds while asexual involves the vegetative parts of plant in raising new ones. The parts of the stem cutting mostly used are leaves, root, stems and terminal bud, due their simplicity. There are various trees on which stem cuttings can be done based on their maturity. It can be done on either herbaceous, hardwood, softwood or semi-hardwood due to their convenience and the stem cuttings of some more difficult to root than others. Asexual propagation involves stem cuttings, air layering, grafting, budding and micro propagation. Adoption of these forms of vegetative propagation has increased over the years and different species have been propagated through each of these methods with various degree of success. This paper aims at reviewing various techniques in propagating plant species.