Uso da enxertia na produção de mudas de meloeiro

Abstract

Grafting appears in the scenario of vegetable production as a strategy to escape adverse conditions from the continuous cultivation of these plants in the same area during practically the whole year. Choice of materials to be used as graft and rootstock allied to the type of grafting define the success of the technique in the production of commercial seedlings. Among the advantages provided by grafting are the possibility of increasing the resistance of plants to soilbourne pathogens, salinity, water deficit and also increases in productivity and fruit quality. For melons, the greatest bottleneck in the use of grafting is to obtain rootstocks that adapt to the environment, do not interfere negatively in the quality of the fruits and maintain resistance to diseases for a long period of time. The causes of incompatibility in the grafting of the melon aren’t well clarified and incompatible answers may arise even after transplanting. The incentive to trace rootstock / graft combinations for melon is a potential means to overcome these limitations, since the rangeof commercial rootstocks is limited, being restricted basically to the melon itself and the Cucurbita maximaand Cucurbita Moschata.