Vegetable Grafting: History, Use, and Current Technology Status in North America

By Chieri Kubota, M. McClure, N. Kokalis-Burelle, M. Bausher, E. Rosskopf. 2008

277 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Grafting of vegetable seedlings is a unique horticultural technology practiced for many years in East Asia to overcome issues associated with intensive cultivation using limited arable land. This technology was introduced to Europe and other countries in the late 20th century along with improved grafting methods suitable for commercial production of grafted vegetable seedlings. Later, grafting was introduced to North America from Europe and it is now attracting growing interest, both from greenhouse growers and organic producers. Grafting onto specific rootstocks generally provides resistance to soilborne diseases and nematodes and increases yield. Grafting is an effective technology for use in combination with more sustainable crop production practices, including reduced rates and overall use of soil fumigants in many other countries. Currently, over 40 million grafted tomato seedlings are estimated to be used annually in North American greenhouses, and several commercial trials have been conducted for promoting use of grafted melon seedlings in openfields.Nevertheless, thereareissuesidentifiedthatcurrently limitadoptionofgraftedseedlings inNorthAmerica. One issue unique to North America is the large number of seedlings needed in a single shipment for large-scale, open-field production systems. Semi- or fully-automated grafting robots were invented by several agricultural machine industries in the 1990s, yet the available models are limited. The lack of flexibility of the existing robots also limits their wider use. Strategies to resolve these issues are discussed, including the use of a highly controlled environment to promote the standardized seedlings suitable for automation and better storage techniques. To use this technology widely in North American fresh vegetable production, more information and locally collected scientific and technical data are needed. Grafting of herbaceous seedlings is a unique horticultural technology practiced for many years in East Asia to overcome issues associated with intensive cultivation using limited arable land for vegetable pro- duction. According to Lee and Oda (2003), a self-grafting technique to produce a large gourd fruit by increasing root-to-shoot ratio through multiple graftings was described in an ancient book written in China in the 5th century and in Korea in the 17th century. The first record of interspecific, herbaceous graft- ing as a yield increase and pest/disease con- trol strategy was for watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum.& Nakai), using a squash rootstock (Cucurbita moschata Duch.), reportedly developed by a water- melon farmer in Japan (Tateishi, 1927). This watermelon grafting technique was quickly disseminated to farmers through extension research programs of regional agricultural experimental stations in Japan, and then later into Korea, during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Use of grafted seedlings in commer- cial vegetable production occurred as early as the 1930s in Japan for watermelon grafted on Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl. (Oda, 2002). Research on grafting cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) also started in the late 1920s,butwidercommercialapplicationsdid not happen until 1960 (Sakata et al., 2008). For members of the Solanaceae, the first record was of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) grafted on scarlet eggplant (Solanum integrifolium Poir.) in the 1950s (Oda, 1999). Grafting tomato (Lycopersicon escu- lentum Mill.) was introduced commercially in the1960s(LeeandOda,2003).Alongwiththe rapid development of intensive protected cul- tivation technologies using high tunnels and greenhouses, which presumably prevented farmers from continuing traditional crop rota- tion, vegetable grafting became a crucial tool to overcome soilborne diseases and other pests. In the 1990s, nearly 60% of open fields and greenhouses in Japan producing musk- melon (Cucumis melo L.), watermelon, cucumber, tomato, and eggplant were report- edly planted with grafted seedlings (National Research Institute of Vegetables, Ornamental

Subfields: Cell Biology, Plant Science

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Citations in the corpus

Fusarium Wilt of Watermelon: 120 Years of Research (2014, background): “Several reviews on the history of vegetable grafting are available (Lee 1994; Sakata et al. 2007; Davis et al. 2008; Kubota et al. 2008).”
End-of-day far-red light quality and dose requirements for tomato rootstock hypocotyl elongation (2010, background): “Vegetable grafting has been widely used worldwide to obtain resistance to soilborne pathogens and pests (Kubota et al., 2008).”
Tomato Grafting: A Global Perspective (2017, background): “In addition, most of the grafting researches are from greenhouse production systems, and limited information on compatibility with open-field cultivars and field performance of grafted plants in various climatic conditions (Kubota et al., 2008).”
Grafting Tomato as a Tool to Improve Salt Tolerance (2020, background): “Commercial tomato grafting became popular in the 1960s in East Asia, Europe and later in North America [20,21].”