Contribution of roots to growth and physiology of watermelon grafted onto rooted and unrooted seedlings of various bottle gourd rootstocks

Abdullah ULAŞ,Firdes Ulas,Alim Aydın,Halit Yetişir

doi:10.31015/jaefs.4.2

Abdullah ULAŞ, Firdes Ulas + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.31015/jaefs.4.2

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Abstract

Contribution of roots to growth and physiology of watermelon grafted onto rooted and unrooted seedlings of various bottle gourd rootstocks

Highlights

Grafting is an important and widely applied practice for the production of cucurbit and solanaceous vegetable crops which are usually propagated by using grafted seedlings (Alan et al, 2017)
Our results clearly indicated that grafting with vigor rootstocks either with rooted seedlings or unrooted cuttings have pronounced positive effect on shoot and root growth
Irrespective of grafting process, watermelon plants usually showed a better performance in growth and physiological development when they were used as rooted seedlings compared to unrooted cuttings

Summary

Introduction

Grafting is an important and widely applied practice for the production of cucurbit and solanaceous vegetable crops which are usually propagated by using grafted seedlings (Alan et al, 2017). Several studies were carried out on grafting which represents a feasible alternative propagation technique in fruit bearing vegetables such as in tomato, watermelon, cucumber and eggplant to solve issues related to biotic and/or abiotic stress factors that affecting the fruit yield and quality (Lee, 1994; Davis et al, 2008; Schwarz et al, 2010; Savvas et al, 2010). Watermelon cultivars are grafted onto Cucurbita moschata, C. maxima, Benincasa hispida and Lagenaria siceraria rootstocks which are the widely used rootstock species for watermelon (Lee, 1994). In Turkey, grafting studies on watermelon plants were started in 2000s by testing 10 rootstocks consisting of Lagenaria, landrace and cucurbit hybrids (Yetisir, 2001). Ozdemir et al (2016) reported that, watermelon varieties Crimson Tide and Crisby were grafted onto hybrid rootstocks of RS 841, Ferro, Argentario and Macis rootstocks and observed that more yield, fruit size, plant development and fruit quality were produced by the grafted plants

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