Vegetable grafting as a strategy for yield stability, stress tolerance, and climate-resilient agriculture: a comprehensive review

Vegetable grafting is a sustainable horticultural technique that is widely used as a propagation method for improving crop tolerance to various environmental stresses, productivity and quality. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the global adoption, historical development, and major grafting techniques, including splice, cleft and tongue, as well as automated grafting approaches. It highlights the importance of understanding rootstock-scion interactions to improve seedling vigour, stress tolerance, and productivity. We discuss crucial mechanisms involving callus formation, vascular reconnection, hormonal signalling, and epigenetic regulation. Well-managed nursery and healing conditions are critical for producing quality grafted seedlings. It increases resistance to soil-borne pathogens, tolerance to abiotic stresses, and has beneficial effects on yield stability and fruit quality. Recent advancements in rootstock breeding and automation enable greater-scale reproduction of rootstocks to produce vegetables resilient to climate change, despite hurdles such as scion-rootstock incompatibility and high production costs.