Improvement in rooting of cuttings of FDR-1, a dwarfing rootstock for kaki^©

INTRODUCTION
The ‘Fuyu’ Japanese persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) tree grafted onto FDR-1 (Fukuoka Dwarfing Rootstock No. 1) showed a semi-dwarfing growth habit in the orchard of Fukuoka Agriculture and Forestry Research Center. After cutting off from the rootstock, the roots sprouted root-suckers. The explants (buds) were collected from the root-suckers and were micropropagated easily. Young trees of ‘Taishu’ Japanese persimmon grafted onto the micropropagated FDR-1 rootstocks showed dwarfing growth (Haranoushiro et al., 2010). Although the cutting propagation of kaki in the mist system was shown to be a cheap and commercial propagation (Tetsumura et al., 2011), the rooting percentages of cuttings of FDR-1 was low in our preliminary experiments. Hence, the objective of this study was to improve rooting of cuttings of FDR-1.