Pane, Dharmawan, Kiantoro 1

Alexia Deva Pane, Angela Liana Dharmawan, Evelyn Kiantoro

Ibu Kusumawati Hutabarat
Science 9.2
17 December 2015
Propagation: Air Layering, Grafting, Tissue Culture
Propagation is the process of creating new plants from a variety of sources and there are
many different ways to do it. Two of them are Air layering, Tissue culture, and Grafting, through
Grafting you combine two or more plants and making a new individual plant. Meanwhile
through air layering, you cut the stem from the mother root and layer it on another plant by
placing the stem on top of the other plants branch and layer it with plastic that should not be
tight and so it will grow a new plant. Through Tissue culture you take a tissue sample scraped
from the parent plant and is placed in a container with nutrients which will grow into plantlets
and then these plantlets will be moved to a compost. These three process has their own
disadvantage and advantage and so let us see which one will be more efficient and their pros and
cons.
Grafting is a procedure of combining or joining two or more plants and growing them as
new individual plant, meaning a grafted plants is a plant composed of parts from two or more
plants. This method is done by growing the upper part of a plant called scion on the root system
or rootstock of another plant. The grafting method is used for several kinds of purposes and the
technique if not only used for plant propagation. One of the purposes of grafting method is to
make possible of repairing damaged plants. As plants such as large trees or specimen plants
reaches the soil line or above, they are very easily damaged. This may be caused by several
factors, maintenance equipment such as trenchers and lawn mowers, diseases, rodents, or winter

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storm. Planting several young plants of the same species around the injured tree and grafting the
plant above the injure can help repair the damage. The graphing methods used to repair injuries
or damages in plants are called bridge grating. Bridge grafting provides and supplies nutrient for
the damaged plants.

Air layering is a process which is similar to stem cutting. In air layering, firstly the stem
is planted from the mother root and then the stem is cut off from the root and is planted again as
a new plant with another source of stem from another plant. This process combines the plant
from the mother root to make a new plant which may result to a combination of two or more
fruits together. Air layerings process happens faster than planting new plants from seeds because
a part of the stem is taken and planted to a new plant which makes it grow faster. In this process,
the stem is placed on a branch of a new plant and that part should be covered with plastic or a
thin material that covers it so the tie should not be too tight to let water and oxygen pass through
the plant. This may cause the plant to keep getting enough nutrient to keep growing. After the
plant grows, some branches are cut off to prevent it from falling apart which may destroy the
roots and results to a fatal mistake. Air layering is an efficient process because it takes less time
to grow and the process is shorter. The result is more ensured because it is simple to perform and
it does not need a lot of expensive materials.

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Three of these methods are efficient processes of propagation. Three of these method
may be done in various types of plants and even bigger and thicker plants. Air layering and
Grafting has the same process of taking a part of another plant and combining it into one plant.
Air layering takes the stem and plant it on another plant meanwhile Grafting the grafting process
takes the scion which is the highest branch of the tree and is then planted on the root system or
rootstock of another plant. Tissue culture actually just needs the sample tissue so the size of the
tree does not matter, what matters is the tissue sample that will be used to grow plantlets.
Although air layering actually needs more care and protection because if there are too many
branches growing and it is not cut off, it may fall off and the process will be unsuccessful,
meanwhile the grafting does not need as much care because it is planted on a new plant and will
take quite some time to grow. Although the grafting process is longer and has more steps to go
through. Tissue culture is easier because there are not as much materials needed although the
gases and chemical will need more care. But tissue culture does not need a lot of materials and
also space, it takes place in a small box or container and is not complicated. Regarding these
propagation methods, both of them are different but they have the same purposes. If a person
wants to have easier steps it is better to do air layering or tissue culture although it needs more
care. The grafting process may not need as much care but the steps are quite difficult to go
through. Both of them have their advantage and disadvantages based on the steps and some other
factors.

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Works Cited
Air Layering. Plant Propagation Method. Gardentia, n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2015
<http://gardentia.net/plant-propagation-methods/>.
Bilderback, Ted, R. I. Bir, and T. G. Ranney. "Grafting and Budding Nursery Crop Plants." NC
State University. NC Cooperative Extension, 30 June 2014. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
<http://content.ces.ncsu.edu/grafting-and-budding-nursery-crop-plants>.

Williams, Gareth.

Tissue culture is a type of propagation used to speed up the growth of plants, and grow a
majority of plants with supervision with total control of the sunlight, water, and oxygen
used. Tissue culture is a propagation that requires a very clean and sterile environment. The
first steps of tissue culture include getting a few of the plant cells, and growing it using its
own plant tissue. Before the plant tissue and cells are provided, they sterilize using various
methods such as burning it and boiling it and many more. After sterilizing it the plant cells
are put into a controlled environment, such as labs. Then plants get divided to multiply the
number of growing plants. Afterwards, they got put into a soil in a type of litter box and
covered in order to protect and control the environment even more. There are both positive
and negative advantages from tissue culture. Positive are that they can help endangered
plants to grow more, also that they can be grown during whatever season within a fast time.
Another positive thing from tissue culture is that helps grow more nutritious fruits. Negative
things about tissue culture that this procedure would mean that we could clone humans and

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animals, which is wrong and also a bit like playing God. Other side effects are that animals
would have to adapt to the new fruits and seasons of the blooming of the fruits.