Cheerakuzhy Young Budding is a milestone in the history of rubber cultivation. This painstaking effort of our pioneer, Shri. K.C. Kuriakose, has come out with a new method in Rubber Budding. He was tired of many experiments in view to over-come the drawbacks of the age-old method of Rubber Budding. Only using his available tools at home and commonsense he developed a new successful method and later it came to be known as "Cheerakuzhy Young Budding". (Initially he named it ‘Seeded Poly Bag Plants’).

Under this method, germinated rubber seeds are planted directly in polybags during July-Angust and budding starts from the 28th day and continues upto 60 days. The scion (budwood) used for Young Budding should be of 20 to 25 days old. After the successful budding process, the Young Budded Plants will be allowed to grow in the polybays itself for 4 to 5 months. Thereafter, the shoot portion above the bud patch will be chopped off. The bud will start sprouting from the 10th day onwards. After a further growth of 4 months; the plants will be ready for transplanting in the field. Thus, by way of Young Budding: the plants in polybags get matured for cultivation within 10 months afer sowing the rubber seeds.

There are certain preliminary precautions are necessary when we adopt this method in tender plants. In fact, Young Budding technique can be easily carried out by well-experienced budders. But there has to be keen attention and care should be taken by them in order to put into practice this method. First of all, usual budding knife should be avoided. Instead, it is worth to be mentioned that, a special kind of knife designed and developed by Shri. K.C. Kuriakose to do this new technique in tender plants.

Advantages of Young Budded Polybag Plants:

1. Germinated seeds are planted directly in polybags and the budding is done. So there is no loss of initial roots. This results in better growth of plants and earlier tapping.
2. Germinated seeds of high quality are planted in polybags in order to avail healthy plants to carry out Young Budding from 28th day onwards. Hence about 95 - 98% budding success is obtained.
3. The natural development of root system remains more or less intact which ensures better growth and helps the trees resist stong winds and also gives them greater protetion against drought in the initial years.
4. Facility for the selection of mighty plants of unifrom growth and lesser casualty on outplanting. It also helps 90 to 95% of the plants achieve uniform growth and this will result to high-yielding.
5. Young Budding saves labour as well as costs. As the plants remain in the polybag, during the entire process, the labour of transferring them from the field to the polybags is eliminated. Size of the polybags used in Young Budding is much smaller and hence the labour requirement in the nursery for tansport and field planting, is much less than the other traditional polybag plants.
6. In Young Budding the seedlings becoming ready for planting within 10 months. Thus it saves time too.
7. With regard to Young Budding, there exists a misunderstanding among the planters. So, bear in mind that Young Budding is not a new clone but only a sophisticated method of budding.

Green Budding:

In the case of the traditional method of Green Budding, the budding is done after the seedlings have grown in the field for 2 months and they remain in the field after budding for another 2-3 months. Then they are plucked from the ground and transplanted into polybags. The bud will start sprouting from the 15 th day onwards. After a further growth of 4 to 5 months; the plants will be ready for field planting. Thus, by way of Green Budding, the Plants in polybags get matured for planting within one year.

Advantages of Green Budded Polybag Plants:

Green Budded Polybag Plants have more or less the same merits that of young Budded Polybag Plants. They too show the uniformity in growth, the tendency in fast growing, less casualty in the field etc. Green Budding is also done on selected heathy plants just like we do in Young Budding. Due to the sudden growth of fresh roots, the Plants grow energetically in the initial years. However, the Green Budded Polybag plants require very close attention during the early period of growth, especially in the field.

Brown Budding:

Under this traditional method, the budding is done after the seedlings have grown in the field for one year and they remain in the field after budding for another six months. Then they are removed from the ground and transplanted into polybags. The bud will start sprouting from the 25th day onwards. After six more months they are ready to field planting. So in effect it takes about two years for seedling to become ready for planting.

Advantages of Brown Budded Polybag Plants:

Brown Budded Poybag Plants do not have any superior merits when compared to Young and Green Budded Polybag Plants. The only feature of Brown Budded sapplings is that they seem to be more healthy and vigorous than that of Young and Green Budded sapplings. But it is mere superfluous. If the Brown Budding done in stock plants is found unsuccessful, there is a possiblity of making them success through re-budding.

Comparison:

Cheerakuzhy Young Bud Rubber Nursery invites you attention to have a close comparative study between the traditional methods of rubber budding and the young budding based on the performance given as follows:-