Vegetable Grafting

Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. Grafting methods. 3. Basic requirements for grafted plants production. 4. Grafting techniques in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.). 5. Grafting techniques in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.). 6. Grafting techniques in capsicum (Capsicum annuum L.). 7. Grafting techniques in bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.). 8. Grafting techniques in cucumber (Cucumis sativus. L.). 9. Grafting techniques in watermelon [Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. and Nakai]. 10. Mechanization in grafting of vegetables and future prospects.

Vegetables are nutritionally important and are often referred as ‘Protective food’ and remunerative enough to replace subsistence farming. Grafting in fruit crops is centuries old technique, that has been practiced for many years. However, application of grafting in vegetable crops is a recent innovation for sustainable vegetable production to meet the growing demand. Grafting is a viable technology that revitalizes modern vegetable production in challenging environments. This technique helps for efficient management of soil borne diseases, nematodes and waterlogged soils and helps to the farmers to bring out the quality produce in spite of difficult growing conditions.

Despite a good scope for grafted vegetable production, there is a gap in understanding the grafting techniques, healing methods, graft compatibility, hardening and growing of grafted plants, resistance mechanisms against biotic and abiotic stress factors and duration of grafted plants etc. Consequently the researchers are now being directed to focus on quality organic vegetable production due to high market demand. The book “Vegetable Grafting” has therefore been written for enhancing the knowledge on rootstock species, different grafting techniques, rootstock-scion interactions, physiology of graft union, yield improvement and quality enhancement and increasing the crop duration of grafted plants.