This book provides comprehensive, current scientific and applied practical knowledge on vegetable grafting, a method gaining considerable interest that is used to protect crops from soil-borne diseases, abiotic stress and to enhance growth/yield. Though the benefits of using grafted transplants are now fully recognized worldwide, understanding the rootstock-scion interactions under variable environmental pressures remains vital for grafting-mediated crop improvement. In this book the authors attend to this need and explain the reasons for, and methods and applications of, grafting. Vegetable Grafting: Principles and Practices covers: · rootstock breeding, signalling, and physiological and molecular mechanisms involved in grafting; · beneficial effects of grafting including reducing disease damage and abiotic stress; · side effects relating to the impact of grafting on fruit quality; and · practical applications and speciality crops. Including high-quality colour images and written by an international team of expert authors, this book provides up-to-date scientific data and is also concerned with translating science to the field. It is an essential resource for researchers, advanced technicians, practitioners and extension workers.

Contributions by: Alfonso Albacete, M. A. Nawaz, Penelope J. Bebeli, Meni Ben-Hur, Zhilong Bie, Angeles Calatayud, Roni Cohen, Sara Cookson, J. Anja Dieleman, Ian C. Dodd, Aviv Dombrovsky, Menahem Edelstein, Pilar Errea, Carmina Gisbert, Francesco Giuffrida, Yuan Huang, Jan Janse, Eyal Klein, Amnon Koren, Pradeep Kumar, Marios C. Kyriacou, Jung-Myung Lee, Cherubino Leonardi, Frank J. Louws, Isabel Mourao, Georgia Ntatsi, Golgen B. Oztekin, Ivan Paponov, Maria Belen Pico, Ana Pina, Youssef Rouphael, Dimitrios Savvas, Andrew J. Thompson, Allessandra Trinchera, Jan Henk Venema, Halit Yetisir