Vegetable Grafting: Principles and Practices

This book provides comprehensive, current scientific and applied practical knowledge on vegetable grafting, a method gaining considerable interest that is used to protect crops from soil-borne diseases, abiotic stress and to enhance growth/yield. Though the benefits of using grafted transplants are now fully recognized worldwide, understanding the rootstock-scion interactions under variable environmental pressures remains vital for grafting-mediated crop improvement. In this book the authors attend to this need and explain the reasons for, and methods and applications of, grafting. Vegetable Grafting: Principles and Practices covers: * rootstock breeding, signalling, and physiological and molecular mechanisms involved in grafting; * beneficial effects of grafting including reducing disease damage and abiotic stress; * side effects relating to the impact of grafting on fruit quality; and * practical applications and speciality crops. Including high-quality colour images and written by an international team of expert authors, this book provides up-to-date scientific data and is also concerned with translating science to the field. It is an essential resource for researchers, advanced technicians, practitioners and extension workers.