Grafting in vegetables is a comparatively recently popularized approach among vegetable growers worldwide. Initially the technique was for controlling soil borne diseases which is still of much importance in today’s intensive agriculture. But with modification in grafting approaches and other related researches, this has now become a multifaceted approach being used for several purposes. Grafting is an important integrated pest management strategy to manage soil borne pathogens and other pests of solanaceous and cucurbitaceous crops using suitable rootstocks. Important diseases managed by grafting are caused by fungus such as Verticillium and Fusarium; oomycetes like Phytophthora; bacteria, particularly Ralstonia and root knot nematodes. Grafted seedlings are much favored in hydroponics where the chances of rapid spread of noxious diseases, once infected, is high. Due to limited availability of arable land and the high market demand for vegetables around the world, vegetables are frequently cultivated under unfavorable soil and environmental conditions like thermal stress, drought and flooding, contamination by persistent organic pollutants and low soil temperature and high soil salts, especially under protected cultivations where successive cropping or continuous farming is routinely practiced. One way to reduce losses in production caused by such abiotic stresses in vegetables would be to graft them onto rootstocks capable of reducing the effect of external stresses on the shoot through vigorous attainment of soil nutrients, avoidance of infection by soil pathogens and tolerance of abiotic stresses. Vegetable grafting has also been safely adapted for the production of organic as well as environmentally friendly produce and minimizes uptake of undesirable agrochemical residues. The quality characteristics like firmness, texture, flavor and health compounds might be affected by grafting as a result of the translocation of metabolites associated with fruit quality to the scion through the xylem and/or modification of the physiological processes of the scion.

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