Effects of Grafting on Organic Seedling Quality and Tomato Production in Greenhouse

Abstract

Grafting is used as an essential cultural technique to increase tolerance of vegetables against biotic and abiotic stresses. Since grafting contributes to sustainable agriculture by reducing the amount of agrochemicals used for soil disinfection, it is an important strategy in particular in organic production. However, grafted organic seedling production is not a common practice. Thus, this study was conducted in order to determine seedling growth and crop performance of organically grown grafted tomato plants in spring-summer season of 2016. Seeds of rootstocks namely ‘Beaufort’ and ‘Sarafin’ and scion cv. ‘Melis’ were sown in vermicompost:local peat (1:1.5 v/v) mixture and after germination in growth chamber, seedlings were moved to a greenhouse. When they had 3-4 fully developed leaf, they were grafted with tube grafting method. Self-grafted seedlings were used as control. Grafted seedlings were left in a healing unit for 10 days and placed again into greenhouse for adaptation. One week later, ten seedlings from each replicate were harvested to measure seedling performance and others were transplanted in greenhouse in order to determine their biomass, yield and fruit quality performance. The results confirmed that the use of rootstock affected root and stem length, stem diameter, shoot and root fresh and dry weights of seedlings; yield and plant growth of plants significantly. However, fruit quality did not change. The use of rootstocks increased the seedling quality, total and marketable yield and plant growth. Among the tested rootstocks ‘Beaufort’ was found more appropriate due to the highest performance on organic seedling growth and tomato production under greenhouse conditions.