Grafting vegetable plants can provide benefits like increased disease resistance, vigor, and yields. While commonly used for tomatoes, grafting is not as widely applied to other crops. Grafting separates the scion and rootstock, allowing plant breeders to focus on different goals for each. Rootstocks often use interspecific hybridization to provide benefits to the scion like stronger roots. Potential downsides include increased costs and labor. The document then provides an overview of the grafting process and different grafting techniques for solanaceous and cucurbit crops.

1. An Overview of Grafting
for Vegetable Crops
Andrew Mefferd
Growing for Market Magazine

2. Grafting has the potential to
overcome many production
problems

3. A natural way to get
more out of your plants

4. Healthier plants and
higher yields are due
to:
• Increased resistance to disease
and abiotic stress
• Higher vigor and a bigger root
system

5. So, why is grafting not as
important for other crops yet
as for tomatoes?

6. Why grafting works
• Plant breeding is a balance of many
different goals
• Grafting separates the goals of the
scion from the rootstock

7. Rootstocks are the
mules of the vegetable
world
• Most rootstocks take advantage
of interspecific hybrid vigor

8. Potential Drawbacks
• Increased cost
• Increased labor of grafting
• Potential of bad grafts
• Can make plants too vigorous
• Diminishing returns
• No yield boost?

9. A quick overview of the
grafting process
• Propagation
• Cutting and Splicing
• Healing
• Re-acclimation

10. Old-fashioned razor
blade
Don’t try this without the paper
wrapper!

11. Snapped in half

12. Solanaceous top
grafting- start with a
plant like this

13. Sever the top at a
60-70 degree angle

14. So it looks like this

15. Cut your top variety at
the same angle and
put in a grafting clip

16. Put the top on with
the slant of the cut
visible in the opening
of the clip

17. This is what a finished
top grafted plant
should look like

18. Solanaceous cleft
grafting

19. Cut the top off and
split the stem

20. Cut a top to match
and put a clip below
the cut

21. Insert the top into the
rootstock…

22. …and push the clip up
to secure the graft
union.

23. Approach graft-
nightshades or
cucurbits

24. Make a downward slanting
cut 2/3 of the way through
the stem of one plant, and
an upward matching cut
through the stem of the
other plant.

25. Clip the plants
together and remove
the top of the
rootstock

26. One cotyledon graft-
cucurbit family

27. Sever the top,
including dormant
bud, leaving one
cotyledon

28. Cut the top off the
scion below the
cotyledons at a
matching angle

29. Clip the plants
together for healing

30. Questions?? Thank you!