Research Symposium-2013

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Browsing Research Symposium-2013 by Subject "Ayurvedic Medicine"

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    Effect of Different Potting Media for Vegetative Propagation of Tippili (Piper longum and Piper samentosum)
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2013) Sudasinghe, S.P.; Alwis, L.M.H.R.; Marasinghe, P.
    Tippili is a widely used ayurvedic medicinal raw material in Sri Lanka. There are two types of tippili, known as, wal tippili and gas tippili (Personal contact ayurvedic physicians). Those two herbs were identified as separate species: Piper longum and Piper samentosum, which belong to the family Piperaceae and native to South and South East Asia. It is a dioecious, perennial herb with a thick, erect and branched rootstock and an ascending or prostrate stem (Huber, 1987). Although those plants can be grown in wet regions in Sri Lanka, tippili is highly cultivated in low country wet zone. The economic important parts are roots and dry spikes of female plant, which are generally used for its several medicinal and spicy properties. Availability of tippili as raw material in Sri Lanka is not sufficient to cater the requirement and the demand of the tippili plant has been increased. Therefore, Sri Lanka has to import tippili from South Bihar region in India (Abeywardana and Hettiarachchi, 2001). According to Department of Ayurveda (Technical branch), Sri Lanka has expended US $ 246485 for tippili spikes and US $ 43009 for tippili roots. India is a leading country which is producing ayurvedic products and they export adulterants due to high demand. Those adulterants do not have proper medicinal value. As a result final medicinal value of local ayurvedic products could be reduced. Therefore, it is better that local requirement of tippili to be produced within our country. Most of Sri Lankan tippili plants are female plants (Samuel, 1982) and the seed production is very low. Therefore, tippili plant is difficult to multiply through the seed propagation. According to Samuel (1982) it is grown as a medicinal plant to a limited extent in village homesteads in Sri Lanka. Stem cutting is a present method follows the multiplication of tippili plant. There are no recommended potting mixture, environmental requirements, cuttings and other planting materials available for vegetative propagation. The aim of this study was to find out the effective potting medium, polythene type and species for vegetative propagation of tippili for commercial scale cultivation using stem cuttings. Methodology This study was carried out at National Research Medicinal Plant Garden in Haldummulla using three factor factorial CRD design. The three factors considered that can be affected on vegetative propagation were two species of tippil (P. longum and P. samentosum), polythene treatment combinations were used with three replicates. Four different media: media 1 – M1 (Sand: Coir dust 1: 1), media 2 – M2 (Soil: Coir dust 1: 1), media 3 – M3 (Sand: Soil: Coir dust 1: 1: 1), media 4- M4 (Sand: Soil: Coir dust 1: 1: 1) were prepared as potting media which were sterilized using sunlight method. Three nodal cuttings (height-about 5 inches) were taken from each species. The performance of P. longum and P. samentosum plants was evaluated by recording dry weight of plant roots after 90 days of cuttings established, length of the root (length of longest root) and shoot height. Data analysis of the experiment was conducted using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) procedure of the Minitab version 16.