Welcome to our Vegetable Grafting website!

Grafting is a long-standing technology. Grafting has been practiced for centuries and studied for decades, but its application to the U.S. and other vegetable industries continues to develop. Clearly, grafted plants are versatile, scaleable, genetic solutions to production issues for growers of Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae plants such as tomato, pepper, watermelon, cantaloupe. Vegetable grafting can also provide income to propagators (grafted plant suppliers). Although grafted vegetable plant production and use in the U.S. are rising sharply, work is needed to improve its effectiveness and efficiency and increase learning opportunities for growers, researchers, and other members of this growing industry sector.

This website is part of a national research-extension effort to advance the science and practice of vegetable grafting. We strive to provide timely, direct access to relevant, research-based information for preparing, distributing, growing, evaluating, and studying grafted vegetable plants.


This summer, 18 presentations at the 2021 American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) Annual Conference will focus on grafted vegetable crops. View and download the presentation and poster titles with links to their abstracts. Presenters include both emerging and senior professionals associated with nine universities active in our grafting team.

Learn more about vegetable grafting experts, partner institutions, and research focal points under our People tab. Or look under Research to see more annual meeting and symposium records.

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University of California Cooperative Extension hosted a “Mid-Season Open House” focused on grafted watermelon on June 29, 2021. The program included demonstrations, training, and trial tours. On-site trials were testing multiple rootstock-scion combinations and various in-row spacings. UC reports that approximately 20% of the 2021 California watermelon acreage contains grafted planting stock, an increase of approximately 5-6 fold over recent years.

Look under Resources to find more grafting events, along with other educational materials. Interested in research results? Look under Research for published results and research reports from field trials.

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The Vegetable Grafting Decision Support Tool, allows farmers, consultants, extension professionals, and others to analyze the economic costs and benefits of using grafted plants in crop production. Enter information specific to your situation to help determine whether using grafted plants is economically feasible for you. This tool was developed by the Economic Working group of the USDA SCRI-supported Vegetable Grafting Project. Contact Yefan Nian, Zhifeng Gao, and Xin Zhao for information.

Access more user-friendly tools under our Resources tab, including instructional materials and industry information.

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Photos and graphics courtesy of Matt Kleinhenz, The Ohio State University; Zheng Wang, University of California; and University of Florida IFAS.