The study was conducted at the Federal University of Bahia Reconcavo in the municipality of Cruz das Almas, Bahia, Brazil, with the objective of evaluating the effect of the age of rootstock on the method of propagation by grafting. The rootstocks used were obtained from breadfruit tree seeds. A. altilis variety seminifera and grafting method used was the grafting of top cleft when the rootstocks had two, four, six and eight months old. The experimental design was completely randomized with four treatments, five replicates of ten plants per experimental unit. It was evaluated the growth of rootstocks from the stem diameter and plant height, and after grafting was evaluated percentage of fixation, percentage of graft survival at 30 days and number of shoots, number of leaves and graft length of the longest shoot at 90 days. Cleft graft of the top is viable for seedling production of breadfruit. It was found that the percentage of success of the graft to the rootstock four months were higher than other age groups, with 92% of fixation, 72% survival with stem diameter of 10.52 mm. There was little influence of age of rootstock on the number of buds and leaves, but rootstocks eight months of bud length increased.
Artocarpus altilis; cleft grafting; propagation
