Effects of mother tree ages, different rooting mediums, light conditions and auxin treatments on rooting behaviour of Dalbergia sissoo branch cuttings

Dalbergia sissoo Roxb. is one of the promising multipurpose tree species of South Asia. Most of the plantations of D. sissoo from seeds are facing severe threats due to the die-back disease, which ultimately causes death of this potential tree-species within a few months. Vegetative propagation could avoid the die-back disease. Thirty mother trees of different age-groups of D. sissoo were selected for evaluating the rooting behaviour of branch cuttings from D. sissoo as influenced by auxins （IAA or IBA at 100, 200, 500 mg·L^-1）, ages of mother trees （10, 4 and 2 years old） and different environment conditions, i.e., different mediums （soil and sand） or light conditions （in shade and open condition）. The results show that application of IAA and IBA induced more numbers of cuttings （collected from 10-year-old mother trees） to root compared to control. Branch cuttings of D. sissoo collected from 10-year-old mother trees and planted in soil bed in open conditions had 100.0% of cuttings to root in IAA （100 mg·L^-1） and IBA （200 mg·L^-1） treatments. Both rooting medium （Soil and sand） influenced significantly （p〈0.05） on rooting response of branch cuttings. Soil medium was found to achieve maximum no. of branch cuttings to root, compared to sand medium.

Clonal propagation of Bambusa vulgaris by leafy branch cuttings

Bambusa vulgaris Schrad ex wendl is a widely cultivated bamboo species in rural Bangladesh for its versatile uses. The vegetative propagation becomes the only viable alternative for this species because B. vulgaris does not set seed after sparse flowering, which makes seedling progenies unavailable. A low-cost propagation trial was conducted to explore the clonal propagation techniques for the species with two types of small branch cuttings, nodal leafy cuttings and tip cuttings. The cuttings, after treating with 0, 0.1%, 0.4%, and 0.8% IBA solutions, were kept in non-mist propagator to let them to root for assessing the rooting ability. The cuttings were rooted in four weeks and were allowed to grow in the polybags for 10 months under nursery condition to assess their steckling capacity. The study reveals that both types of branch cuttings are able to develop roots, shoots, to survive and to form rhizome under the nursery condition. Rooting ability of the cuttings was significantly enhanced by the application of rooting hormone - IBA. The highest rooting percentage in nodal leafy cuttings and the tip cuttings （56.67% and 51.0%, respectively） were observed in 0.8% IBA treatment, followed by 0.4% IBA and the lowest （34.3% and 30.0%, respectively） was in control. The highest number of root developed per cutting （9.77 and 8.33 in nodal leafy cuttings and the tip cuttings, respectively） was also obtained from the cuttings treated with 0.8% IBA solution, followed 0.4% IBA treatment and the lowest （3.1 and 2.1, respectively） was in the cuttings without treatment. However, the length of the longest root varied significantly neither with the cutting types nor the concentrations of IBA solution. Survival percentage of the stecklings in nursery condition was significantly enhanced by IBA.

Adventitious rhizogenesis in Bambusa nutans and Bambusa tulda: Influence of seasonal variation, IBA and cutting type

The influence of seasonal variation, indole-3-butyric acid （IBA） and type of cuttings was examined on induction and growth of adventitious roots in Bambusa nutans Wall. and Bambusa tulda Roxb. Singlenode culm and culm-branch cuttings from the mature culms were provided with immersion treatment for 24 h of either water （control） or 2 mM IBA in four different seasons, i.e., spring （mid February）, summer （mid May）, rainy （mid July）, and winter （mid November） and maintained for two months in the mist chamber at the relative humidity of （70±5）% and the tenlperature of （30±2）℃. In B. nutans, adventitious rooting occttrred in both types of cuttings in all the seasons with the best rooting in the summer season i.e., May （88% in culm cuttings） and the least in winter. On the contrary, adventitious rooting was recorded only in culm cuttings in spring and summer season in B. tulda. IBA treatment significantly enhanced rooting, root number and root length; registering 14 to 17 times improvement over control in the best rooting season. Three factor- interactions （season × cutting type × IBA treatment） were significant for rooting in B. nutans and all characteristics, except sprouting in B, tulda. Thus, single-node culm and culm-branch cuttings in B. nutans and culm cuttings in B. tulda treated with 2 mM IBA during spring （February） to summer （May） season are recommended for their clonal multiplication.

Effects of cutting types and hormonal concentration on vegetative propagation of Zanthoxylum armatum in Garhwal Himalaya,India

Experiments were carried out to define the effects of hormonal concentrations on semi-hard wood（SHW） and hard-wood（HW） branch cuttings of the Z.armatum. SHW and HW cuttings were collected in the month of March. The SHW and HW cuttings were treated with different concentration of indole-3-acetic acid and indole-3-butyric acid（IAA and IBA） and placed in vermiculite rooting medium for 90 days under 1-min misting after 10 min. Sprouting, rooting percentage, sprout number, sprout length, root number, and length were measured.The highest rooting and sprouting rate, 64.0 %, was obtained at the 0.3 % IBA treatment in the SHW cuttings.Similarly sprout length and number of roots per cutting were also higher at the 0.3 % IBA treatment in the SHW cuttings. The number of shoots per cutting was higher at the 0.3 % IAA treatment in the SHW cuttings. Root length per cutting was higher in 0.4 % IBA treatment in the SHW cuttings. The results indicated that 0.3 and 0.4 % IBA treatment produce higher rooting percentages as well as the number of roots and their length in SHW cuttings. The HW cuttings produced maximum rate of 18.0 % rooting in0.5 % IBA treatment. The control set and lower concentrations of IBA and IAA completely failed to root in the mist chamber.

Accurate evaluation of Green's functions in a layered medium by SDP-FLAM

Based on local Taylor expansions on the complex plane, a method for fast locating all modes （FLAM） of spectral-domain Green＇s Functions in a planar layered medium is developed in this paper. SDP-FLAM, a combination of FLAM with the steepest descent path algorithm （SDP）, is employed to accurately evaluate the spatial-domain Green＇s functions in a layered medium. According to the theory of complex analysis, the relationship among the poles, branch points and Riemann sheets is also analyzed rigorously. To inverse the Green＇s functions from spectral to spatial domain, SDP-FLAM method and discrete complex image method （DCIM） are applied to the non-near field region and the near filed region, respectively. The significant advantage of SDP-FLAM lies in its capability of calculating Green＇s functions in a layered medium of moderate thickness with loss or without loss. Some numerical examples are presented to validate SDP-FLAM method.

Tool Sequence Optimization Based on Three Logical Modes of Robot Control via CPLEX Optimization

Cluster tools have advantages of shorter cycle times,faster process development,and better yield for less contamination.The sequence of dual-arm cluster tools is a complex logistics process during the semiconductor production.Efficient use of cluster tools is naturally very significant to competitive fab operations.Generating an optimized sequence in a computationally efficient manner and assessing the quality of the requirements to improve the fab production are the key factors for semiconductor manufacturing productivity.The Petri net modeling is introduced to minimize the makespan of the process for the three different logical modes and select a better mode after comparing the makespan among the three logical modes.The tool sequence optimization problem is formulated as optimization firing transition sequences based on the Petri net and then the formulation is converted to be linearly solved by the branch-and-cut method in the standard commercial solver CPLEX.Special methods for the linear conversion are highlighted.Due to the limited calculation time requirement for the real production and the large scale of the problem,special methods for the efficiency tuning are applied according to the characteristics of the problem.Numerical testing is supported by one of the most advanced semiconductor enterprises and the computational results show significant improvement compared with the traditional manual sequence results.