RANA, VISHAL SCHOUDHARY, SONALI2020-09-072020-09-072020-08https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810150957ABSTRACT The present study entitled, “Evaluation of hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings for rooting performance in exotic cultivars of kiwifruit (Actinidia spp.)” was carried out during 2019-2020 in the Department of Fruit Science, Dr. YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry at Nauni, Solan (HP). The experiment comprised of eight exotic cultivars as treatment and the research trial was laid out according to Randomized Block Design (RBD). The entire programme of study was conducted under two experiments with a view to elucidate the comparative rooting performance of hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings in exotic cultivars of kiwifruit. Eight exotic cultivars namely; Anna, Chung Bai, Cordifolia, Issai Kiwi, Kens Red, Meader Male, MSU Klur and 74-49 which were taken as treatment. Each treatment was replicated thrice with 30 cuttings per cultivar. The cuttings for experiment-Iwere taken in mid-January (hardwood cutting) and for experiment-II were taken in mid-July (semi-hardwood cutting). Among different cultivars, Kens Red exhibited best performance in term of root, shoot and leaf characteristics. The cultivar Anna performed least on the basis of aforesaid parameters. The survival percentage after field transplanting was also found highest in Kens Red cultivar, whereas, it was recorded minimum in Anna cultivar. Among different cutting types, semi-hardwood cuttings of different cultivars performed better as compared to hardwood cuttings with respect to parameters like per cent rooted cutting, number of primary roots, number of secondary roots and the survival percentage. However, hardwood cuttings performed better in respect of shoot and leaf characteristics. The information generated on the propagation of these new exotic kiwiberry cultivars will serve as a basis for theresearchers in developingnew rootstocks for quality production ofplants.enThesis