Effect of tissue removal and hormone application on rooting of hazelnut layers

'Barcelona' hazelnut (C avellana L.) shoots were girdled and stool layered in a factorial design with three tissue removal (leaf, bud and meristem removal) and two hormone (with or without 750 ppm IBA) treatments. Percent rooting, rooting grade (0 to 5), shoot length, shoot diameter, and total number of buds were determined. Average percent rooting was >90% for all treatments. Girdling alone gave as high percent rooting as hormone application. The main effect of IBA was on root quality rather than percent rooting. About 75% of the hormone-treated rooted layers could be directly planted (grades 3 to 5), compared to 44% for the control, but shoot length, shoot diameter and total number of buds decreased with IBA application. Bud removal did not affect average percent rooting while meristem removal reduced it slightly. The percentage of layers having grades 3 to 5 was lower for the meristem and bud removal treatments than for leaf removal. Our results support the adoption of stool layerage with girdling and IBA application for the production of strong, well-rooted trees suitable for planting directly in the orchard.