Propagation Of Crops, Types, Advantages & Disadvantages

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Plant propagation plays a pivotal role in agriculture, providing the foundation for producing high-yield, disease-resistant, and climate-resilient crops. With global challenges like food security, climate change, and biodiversity loss, effective plant propagation techniques are more essential than ever. This post explains the primary methods of plant propagation in agriculture, their types, and why they’re crucial for sustainable and productive farming.

Table Of Contents

  1. Meaning Of propagation
  2. Types of propagation of Crops
  3. Seed germination.
  4. Types of seed germination
  5. Advantages of propagation of crop
  6. Disadvantages of propagation
  7. Conclusion
  8. Revision Questions

Meaning Of Propagation Of Crops in Agriculture

Definition: Propagation is defined as a multiplication of individual plants into new plants. There are two types of propagation, we have sexual and asexual propagation. Sexual propagation is by seed while asexual propagation is also known as vegetative propagation is by vegetative organs such as stem, root and leaf cuttings.

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Types Of Propagation Of Crops

  1. Sexual Propagation
  2. Asexual propagation

Asexual Propagation

Meaning: Sexual propagation involves reproduction by seed, which can either be planted directly or sowed in the nursery and later transplanted to the field. Seeds are said to be descendants of many generations of plants and tend to resemble their parents. But due to variability which result from different crossing, they could be different from their parents.

in order to keep the life of plant going, farmers should select variable seeds for planting. During selection, there are certain characteristics that must be considered for good result.

  • Availability of such seed or plant to resist diseases.
  • Are they early maturity or late maturing seeds?.
  • Are they high yielding or not?.
  • Are they drought resistant or not?

During selection, farmers should discard seeds that are of inferior quality. Crops that can be propagated by seed include vegetables such as tomato, spinach, okra and green crops such as maize, rice, sorghum, millet and trees crops, e.g. oil palm, coconut, etc.

In recent years, they have been tremendous achievement in the field of breeding by plant breeders, in order to make more quality seeds available to farmers. Breeders have produced new varieties of seeds by cross-pollinating several varieties of the plant. Such achievements have been made in crops like maize, sorghum, rice, Cowpea, tobacco, etc.

Advantages of Sexual Propagation of Crops

  1. Since only seeds with the desired quality and viability are used, therefore in any good environment crop failure is limited.
  2. Through crops pollination, the ability to improve the quality of seed to be planted is very high.
  3. New varieties of seeds can be produced.
  4. Some plants disease can easily be controlled by planting only disease resistance varieties.
  5. One can easily identify or know the ancestry or parents of the seed used for planting.
  6. Transfer of certain characteristics is possible through breeding.

Disadvantages Of Sexual Propagation Of Crops

  1. Breeding and selection required long Period Of time before high yielding and good quality seed can be achieved.
  2. Large numbers of of worthless and poor quality seeds may be produced, which are not suitable for planting.
  3. Pests can easily damage seeds in storage meant for planting.
  4. The cost of production of high quality seeds meant for planting is very high.
  5. Seeds used for propagation are also valuable food for man.
  6. There is no guarantee that the seed to be produced will look like their parents.
  7. Plants that cannot produce seeds cannot be propagated.
  8. Technical know-how is required to achieve the production of high yielding and quality seeds.
  9. Seeds for planting cannot be stored over long period Of time, because seeds easily lost their viability in storage.

ASEXUAL PROPAGATION; Asexual or vegetative propagation involves the growing of new plant from the vegetative parts of the parent plants.

Plants that can be propagated by vegetative means are:

  • Plants that do not produce seeds.
  • Plants that produce seeds, but the seed are not viable for planting.
  • Plants that are easier to propagate by vegetative means, instead of using seeds which may take longer period.

Asexual or vegetative propagation Of Crops can be divided into four groups namely: cutting, budding, grafting and layering.

1. CUTTING: When parts of a plant are cut into potions and planted to produce new plants, such cut portions are called cuttings. Cuttings may come from stems or leaves depending on the type of plant being propagated. Plant whose stems produce roots fairly readily are propagated by stem cuttings.

Hardwood cuttings are prepared from stems of perennial plants, taking from the previous seasons growth. These cuttings may be from 15 – 30cm long depending on varieties. Examples of plant propagated by cuttings are: cassava stem, hibiscus, sugar cane, kola and coffee. While softwood cutting is obtained from sweet potato.

Precautions to be taken during cuttings

  • Cut from mature stems
  • Make sure that cuttings have auxiliary buds.
  • Use sharp cutlass for cuttings

2. SUCKERS: Suckers are shoot which normally developed from the base of the recent or parents plants. Many crops can be propagated by socker and examples of such crops include banana, plantain and pineapple. Suckers usually contain large quantities of food reserves and can survive for some time before being planted.

3. LAYERING : Layering is used to produce new plants of crops like cocoa, kola and coffee. A branch or shoot growing near to the ground is bent over so that one or two of the nodes touch the ground. A slit is made on the node, and the branch pegged to secure it in position. The node is covered with soil. Adventures roots grow out from the Node. When the roots are well established, the stem is severed from the parent plant and transplanted to the field to become a new plant.

Precautions to be taken during Layering

  • Ensure that one or two nodes touch the ground.
  • Make a slit in the nodes to ease the propagation of adventures roots.
  • Peg the bent shoot to secure it in position.
  • Cover the node with the moist soil.

4. BUDDING: Budding is a skill techniques use when plants do not grow easily from cuttings. A bud is cut from matured branches usually 2 years old.

Precautions to be taken during budding

  • care more be taken not to injure the cambium.
  • The tape should be tied from below upwards to avoid rain damage to the site of budding.
  • All side shoots below the new bud should be rubbed or cut off.

5. GRAFTING: Grafting is closely related to budding and is a method of vegetative propagation which involves the application of a whole shoot or stem (the scion) into another plant (The stock). Grafting brings into close contact the vascular cambia of both the scion and the stock. As in budding, both the scion and the stock must be closely related to avoid incompatibility, which could result in the breaking of a scion from the stock at a later date. The basic grafting operation is similar to that of budding. Types of GRAFTING include the cleft, saddle, side and whip and the tongue. Crops usually propagated by grafting is the citrus spp.

Precautions to be taken during grafting

  • Take care not to injure the cambia of scion and the stock.
  • Choose Sion and stock of almost the same sizes and relations.
  • All sides shoot below the point of Union of Sion and stock must be cut off.
  • The tape should be tied from below upwards to prevent rain damage to the grafted site.

Advantages of Vegetative Propagation Of Crops

  1. Plants that do not produce seed can be propagated, e.g Navel orange.
  2. It enables plants such as yam with low seed termination to be propagated.
  3. There is no change in quality, growth habits and possible yield, plants are propagated by Vegetative means.
  4. Plant tends to mature and bear fruits.
  5. The quality of one plant can be blended with equality of another plant. e.g, a particular plant may be high-yieding, but highly susceptible to certain diseases. In this case, the Scion of such a plant can be grafted with a disease resistant root stock, that may be low yielding, but of the same species.

Disadvantages Of Vegetative Propagation

  1. Budding and grafting needs special skills.
  2. Easy transfer of diseases is possible, if propagation method used are not carried out efficiently.
  3. One variety of a plant can be produced indefinitely.
  4. Plants produced are not vigorous and may not live long.

READ ALSO – Crop production cultural practices in agriculture

Conclusion

Plant propagation is fundamental to agriculture, ensuring food security, supporting biodiversity, and promoting sustainable practices. Through both traditional and advanced propagation methods, farmers can cultivate crops tailored to meet the challenges of today’s agricultural demands.

Revision Questions

  1. What is propagation of crop in agriculture?
  2. State the types of propagation of Crop
  3. What is Germination?
  4. Explain sexual germination and asexual germination.
  5. Explain the following: 1. cutting, 2. suckers 3. layering 4. budding 5. grafting
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