Successive grafting confers juvenility traits to adult Spanish red cedar ( Cedrela odorata Linnaeus): a tool for the rescue of selected materials

Spanish red cedar, Cedrela odorata L. (Meliaceae), is a valuable timber tree in tropical American forests. Existing demand for elite individuals endangers the conservation of interesting germplasm, prompting the development of efficient protocols for the establishment of orchards for tree breeding. Based on previous work regarding grafting adult individuals onto young rootstocks, superior trees from Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Campeche, Mexico were employed as a source of explants for plant regeneration after successive rounds of grafting and micrografting onto juvenile rootstocks. The results showed that root length and appearance, internode distance, leaf length and number, and plant height values for trees derived from successive rounds of grafting and micrografting were similar to those obtained from juvenile trees derived from seeds, suggesting that developmental traits associated with reinvigoration were partially induced following the reported procedure. This protocol may be useful for the propagation of mature elite trees belonging to the Meliaceae family.