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Grafting has proven to mitigate some soil-borne diseases and abiotic stresses as well as improve
plant growth, yield and fruit quality. However, in Tanzania the effect of grafting on plant growth,
yield and fruit quality of hybrid tomato cultivars is not yet fully explored. Therefore, the objective
of this study was to evaluate the effect of grafting eggplant rootstocks on plant growth, yield and
fruit quality of hybrid tomato cultivars grown in Tanzania. The study was conducted at Sokoine
University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Tanzania, and the experiment was laid out in a Randomized
Complete Block Design with eight treatments each replicated three times. Hybrid tomato cv.
Assila and Monica were each cleft-grafted onto eggplant EG190, EG195 and EG203 rootstocks
and transplanted in the open field. Ungrafted plants of the same tomato cultivars were used as
controls. Data were subjected to Analysis of Variance using GenStat v.14 statistical package (VSN
International, UK) and treatment means were separated based on Tukey’s Test at P≤0.05. Results
reveal that grafting eggplant EG190, EG195 and EG203 rootstocks significantly reduced total
fruit yield (p = 0.001) and marketable yield (p = 0.001) for all tomato cultivars but significantly (p
= 0.001) increased total soluble solids contents for all tomato cultivars, and titratable acidity for
Monica in comparison to ungrafted controls. Further studies are required to determine rootstocks
that are vigorous enough to carry scions of these hybrid tomato cultivars for yield improvement. |
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