Evaluation of Quantitative and Qualitative Traits of Greenhouse Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. ‘Khassib’) Grafted on Different Cucurbita Rootstocks A. Farhadia and M. Rezaie Agriculture & Natural Resources Research Centre of Isfahan Isfahan Iran Keywords: grafting, rootstock, cucumber, cucurbits, yield Abstract Vegetable production using grafted seedling has become a common practice in many parts of the world. Use of grafted seedling increased in greenhouses due to enhancement of fruit quality and increase yield where production faces with unsuitable suboptimal conditions from late fall to early spring such as low temperature, low light intensity, high humidity and salinity. The study was conducted to determine the effect of grafting on the growth, yield and compatibility between scion and rootstocks during 2008-2009. The popular greenhouse cucumber cultivar ‘Khassib’ was used as scion. Cucumber graft on different rootstocks include ‘RZ Ferro’, ‘RZ426’, ‘ES107’, ‘ES101’, ‘ES152’, ‘RS841’, the landrace of winter squash Cucurbita moschata (‘Halvaii’), Cucurbita pepo var. styriaca (‘Post Kaghazi’), Cucurbita maxima (‘Tanbal’), Lagenaria siceraria (‘Ghelyani’). Non-grafted Cucumis sativus ‘Khassib’ was used as control. The field experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications. Hole insertion grafting technique was followed. The result showed that the growth of the vine, precocity and total yield ws significantly influenced by grafting. Grafted plants on ‘RZ426’ rootstock had higher yield and plant length compared to non grafted ones. Survival rate of seedling were 85, 82, 76, 76, 74, 72, 68, 57, 53 and 48% for ‘RZ426’, ‘Tanbal’, ‘RS841’, ‘ES101’, ‘Halvaii’, ‘ES152’, ‘ES107’, ‘RZ Ferro’, ‘Ghelyani’ and ‘Post Kaghazi’ rootstocks, respectively. All Cucurbita spp. rootstocks were found acceptable for cucumber. However, RZ426 and the landrace of Cucurbita maxima (‘Tanbal’) were the best. INTRODUCTION Iran annually produced about 1.6 million tons of cucumber and is the world’s third largest producer after China and Turkey. Iran produces more than 4% of the global production of cucumber .Continuous cultivation in greenhouses leads to many problems including soil-borne diseases, soil nutrient imbalances, salty or alkaline soils conditions, spreading weeds and nutritional imbalances in the soil. To alleviate such problems vegetable grafting is recommended. The production of grafted plants first began in Japan in the late 1920s with watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Mat-sum. & Nakai var. lanatus) grafted onto gourd rootstock (Lee, 1994; Davis et al., 2008). However, there is some evidence indicating that at least a thousand years before Christ, the Chinese have known the art of grafting (Khoshkhoi, 1998). Today, the different goals of vegetable grafting are: resistance to nematode root knot Meloidogyne spp., resistance to low temperature and salinity and flooding, increased absorption of water and nutrients by selected rootstocks, increasing the plant growth and yield, fruit quality, fruit flesh firmness, accelerate reproductive and early flowering and ripening (Huang et al., 2009). Disadvantages of grafting are the high cost to prepare the transplants and change in the quality of some fruits. In order to reduce costs, it is necessary to increase the percentage of survival grafted seedlings. In South-East Asian countries grafting operations are done a
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Proc. Ist IS on Vegetable Grafting Eds.: Zhilong Bie et al. Acta Hort. 1086, ISHS 2015
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using robots and workers have little contact with plant. Salehi (2009) with grafting of melon Khatuni on rootstocks Shintozwa, Ace, Shitohongto reported more than 97% of compatibility between the rootstocks and scion and the highest root activity of the plants grafted onto Shintozwa. Yetisir and Sari (2003) studied the effects of various rootstocks on growth of the watermelon cultivar (‘Sugar baby’) and reported that Rs-841 rootstock caused an increase in leaf area index, increases in fresh and dry weight of shoots and roots compared with ungrafted plants. RS-841 and Lagenaria rootstocks induced early floweringin grafted plants compared with non-grafted plants. Growth of grafted plants was faster and the yield during early season was higher than with non-grafted plants (Gao-liHong et al., 1998). Two cucumber hybrids cleft grafted onto pumpkin hybrids showed higher growth, plant height and fruit quality than without grafting (Cañizares and Goto, 1998). The objective of this work was to compare different rootstocks and their effects on yield and vegetative characteristics of cucumber plant. MATERIAL AND METHODS In order to examine the effect of rootstocks on fruit yield and vegetative characteristics of greenhouse cucumber plants and selection of appropriate rootstocks, this study was conducted in 2009 in Agriculture and Natural Resources Research Center of Isfahan, Iran (latitude 52°36’32” N, longitude 43°3’632” E, altitude 1612 m).The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design, with three replicates (ten plants for each treatment). Cucumis sativus L. ‘Khassib’ (Rijk Zwaan, The Netherlands) was grafted by using the ‘hole insertion grafting’ described by Lee (1994), onto the rootstocks include ‘RZ Ferro’, ‘RZ426’, ‘ES107’, ‘ES101’, ‘ES152’, ‘RS841’, the landrace of winter squash Cucurbita moschata (‘Halvaii’), Cucurbita pepo var. styriaca (‘Post Kaghazi’), Cucurbita maxima (‘Tanbal’), Lagenaria siceraria (‘Ghelyani’), whereas non-grafted Cucumis sativus ‘Khassib’ was used as a control. When both rootstock and scion have developed cotyledonary leaves and first true leave, grafting was done. Rootstock & scion stems diameter must be the same diameter so their vascular tissue can align, allowing water and nutrients to flow up the stem. The temperature was 25-30°C during the daytime and 17-22°C during the night. The seedlings grew without light and about 90% humidity before the fourth day and gradually increased light and depressed humidity. The grafted seedlings were transferred to the greenhouse. The measured vegetative and reproductive traits of plants included length, precocity, total fruit yield per square meter and the number of fruits per plant. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The highest compatibility between scion and rootstock was observed in the RZ426 (85%), Cucurbita maxima (‘Tanbal’) (83%) and ‘ES101’ (76%). And the lowest was for Cucurbita pepo var. styriaca (‘Post Kaghazi’), Lagenaria siceraria (‘Ghelyani’) (Table 1). Grafting also caused a significant effect on plant growth and fruit yield. The highest yield per square meter (3 plants m-2) were 12.7, 12.1 and 12 kg obtained of RZ426, Cucurbita maxima (‘Tanbal’) and Cucurbita moschata (‘Halvaii’), respectively. Cucurbita pepo var. styriaca (‘Post Kaghazi’) and ES107 had the lower yield (7.3 and 7.57 kg/m2) (Fig. 2). Rootstocks also affected fruit earliness. ‘RZ426’ produced the earliest fruit in early season (Table 1). Increased plant growth in early season in ‘RZ426’ rootstock was leading to precocity (Fig. 4). Rootstocks did not induce significant effect on average fruit weight (Fig. 3). There was some disadvantage, which was generally related to grafting and transplant, such as additional costs for buying rootstocks seeds, grafting labor healing, making compatibility of grafted plant to climate and environment time, space, material and special equipment. The results showed that, the most important advantages of grafting are: increasing the benefit of products sale due to increase yield and out of season production, decreasing costs and irrigation water due to developed rootstock and strong root system. The survival rate of grafted seedling was dependent on rootstock and scion characteristics such as: tissue age, growth rate, rootstock leaf area, cut surface moisture, contact rate of rootstock and scion vascular bundles and conformity of 280
rootstock and scion hypocotyls diameter (Lee and Oda, 2003). Bekhradi et al. (2008) reported that hole insertion grafting method contribute to a better compatibility comparing to split grafting method because of more contact area of vascular bundles between rootstock and scion, as well as less evaporation from grafting tissue. Another reason is the existence of cotyledons which are photosynthetic tissues saving site in hole insertion grafting. The results of this study are in accordance with the previous reported results. Salehi et al. (2009) reported that different graft combinations are differing in compatibility. The difference in compatibility rate between rootstocks and scion in this experiment was clearly observed. The highest fruit earliness was obtained from scion grafted on ‘RZ Ferro’ and ‘ES101’ rootstocks. Grafted rootstock had significant effect on production precocity compared to control plants Cucumis sativus L. ‘Khassib’ without grafting. This increase probably contributed to the ability of grafting rootstock for faster establishment, and to a better coordination with environment after plant transfer which are due to rapid developing of root system which making strong roots. Grafted rootstock spent less time to reach the first fruit harvest than ungrafted plants. It was also observed that rootstock leads to a more marketable fruits in comparison with the control. Cheshmehmanesh et al. (2004) reported Cucumis sativus L. vary vilmorin grafted onto Cucurbita spp. has more early bearing fruit than non-grafting ones, confirming our results. The choice of adequate rootstock is essential for fruit precocity which is strongly affected by rootstock. The grafting technology has a high potential to contribute to the quality and quantity of fruit. Compatibility grafting between scion and rootstock requires suitable genetic material. Environmental conditions and bed culture also affect the choice of rootstock. Finally, RZ426, Cucurbita maxima (Tanbal) and Cucurbita moschata (Halvaii) have the highest survival rates and yield in grafted cucumber. Literature Cited Bekhradi, F., Kashi, A. and Delshad, M. 2008. Study of effects Cucurbita differences rootstocks on growth and yield of watermelon (Citrullus lanatus cv, Charlestongry) and blossom end rot. 5th Congress Horticultural of Science, Shiraz, Iran. Canizares, K. and Goto, R. 1998. Growth and yield of cucumber hybrids as a result of grafting. Horticultura Brasileira 16(2):110-113. Cheshmemanesh, A., Kashi, A. and Memarmoshrefi, M. 2004. Effect of grafting of two cultivar cucumber “Royal and Vilmorin” on Fig leaf rootstock (Cucurbita ficifolia). Seed and Plant Production Journal 19(4):435-456. Davis, A.R., Perkins-Veazie, P., Sakata, Y., López-Galarza, S., Maroto, J.V., Lee, S.G., Huh, Y.C., Sun, Z., Miguel, A., King, S.R., Cohen, R. and Lee, J.M. 2008. Cucurbit grafting. Crit. Rev. Plant Sci. 27:50-74. Gao, LiHong, Ling, Lijuan, Shi, Haixian, Zhang, ZhenHe, Gao, L.H., Ling, Lj, Shi, Hx and Zhang, Zh. 1998. Grafting culture and freeze-resistance of winter-spring cucumber in greenhouse. Advances in Horticulture 2:443-447. Huang, H., Tang, R., Cao, Q. and Bie, Z. 2009. Improving the fruit yield and quality of cucumber by grafting onto the salt tolerant rootstock under NaCl stress. Scientia Horticulturae 122:26-31. Khoshkhoi, M. 1998. Plants Propagation. Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran. Lee, J.M. and Oda, M. 2003. Grafting of herbaceous vegetable and ornamental crops. Horticultural Reviews 28:61-124. Lee, J.M. 1994. Cultivation of grafted vegetables, current status, grafting methods and benefits. HortScience 29(4):235-239. Salehi, R., Kashi, A., Lee, S.G., Hou, Y.C., Lee, G.M., Babalar, M. and Delshad, M. 2009. Assessing the survival and growth performance of Iranian melon to grafting onto Cucurbita rootstocks. Kor. J. Hort. Sci. Technol. 27(1):1-6. Yetisir, H., and Sari, N. 2003. Effect of different rootstock on plant growth yield and quality of watermelon. Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 43:1269-1274.
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Tables
Table 1. Effects of different rootstocks on fruit yield, fruit number and early harvest for combined 2008 and 2009 season. Indicate statistics (as for the other tables and figures). Rootstocks RZ Ferro ES152 RS841 ES101 ES107 RZ426 C. moschata (Halvaii) C. maxima (Tanbal) C. pepo var. styriaca (Post Kaghazi) Lagenaria siceraria (Ghelyani) Ungrafted, C. sativus L. (Khassib)
No fruit per plant 30.6 ab 24.4 abc 26 ab 28 ab 18.3 c 34 a 27 ab 31 ab 22 bc 25.7 ab 29.7ab
Precocity (kg/m2) 1.59 ab 1.1 abc 1.1 abc 1.16 abc 0.8 c 1.82 a 1.29 abc 1.65 ab 0.76 c 0.96 bc 1.15 abc
Total yield (kg/plant) 3.8 ab 3.33 ab 3.8 ab 3.5 ab 2.52 b 4.23 a 4a 4.03 a 2.43 b 3.1 ab 3.43 ab
Different letters in columns indicate significant differences at p
