Grafting in vegetables to improve abiotic stress tolerance, yield and quality
Anant Bahadur, Prabhakar Singh, Nagendra Rai, Anish Kumar Singh, Achuit K. Singh, Suhas Gorakh Karkute, Tusar Kanti Behera
Abstract
Grafting technology has recently emerged as a potential and alternative approach to the comparatively sluggish conventional breeding procedures for increasing tolerance to abiotic stressors, soil pathogens, and improving production and quality features in fruit vegetables. Grafting has been used commercially on watermelons, muskmelon, cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and eggplants to increase plant tolerance to a variety of abiotic conditions, such as soil salinity, drought, waterlogging, high or low temperatures, and heavy metal toxicity, as well as to increase vegetable crop output and quality characteristics. The purpose of this review was to create a complete evaluation based on the available literature on the role of grafting technique in combating various abiotic stresses and boosting yield and quality of vegetable crops. Such information may aid researchers and vegetable growers in improving vegetable quality, particularly under abiotic stress conditions.