The herbaceous grafting of fruiting vegetables is considered a toolbox for safeguarding yield stability under various distresses and for improving fruit quality. Inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungi seems also to be an efficient tool for increasing the assimilation, uptake and translocation of macroelements and microelements, for modulating plant secondary metabolism and for overcoming several forms of plant distress.
A recent study evaluated the combined effect of grafting the “Birgah” (B) eggplant onto its wild/allied relatives’ rootstocks, and AM fungi on the yield, fruit quality, nitrogen use efficiency, mineral profile, and nutritional and functional quality. The grafting combinations significantly increased the marketable fruit and fruit number compared with those in the ungrafted control.
Furthermore, irrespective of the grafting combinations, AM fungi significantly enhanced the marketable fruit, fruit number and nitrogen use efficiency by 13.3%, 12.7% and 13.3%, respectively compared to those in the untreated control.
Source: MDPI