Suraj Raj Poudel and Wen-Shann Lee

DOI

ABSTRACT

With the aim of determining whether grafting could improve the agronomic behavior of tomato, an open field experiment was carried out to determine growth, yield and fruit quality of tomato cv. ‘ASVEG10’ either non-grafted, self grafted or grafted onto two eggplant rootstocks cvs. ‘EG203’ and ‘VFR Takii’. Vegetative growth tended to be depressed, the incidence of blossom end rot (BER) and soluble solid concentration (Brix) of fruits were increased by grafting on eggplant rootstocks. Total yield and average fruit weight were significantly influenced by eggplant rootstock, whereas no significant difference was observed on fruit number per plant. The increment in the total fruit yield of the non-grafted plant resulted into 14.23% and 12.62% more fruit weight per plant than the ‘VFR Takii’ and ‘EG203’, respectively. Both the fresh weight and dry weight of leaves, stems and fruits were significantly higher in nongrafted control. Reduction in fruit yield and /or fruit quality of tomato grafted on eggplant rootstock may have been due to differences in the requirements for assimilates and mineral nutrients between tomato and eggplant.