Trends in Biosciences

A study on grafting of cucumber on cucurbitaceous rootstocks was carried out at Department of Vegetable Crops, Horticultural College & Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore during 2012–2014. In this study, Green Long (variety) and NS 408 (hybrid) cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) scions were grafted on rootstocks viz., fig leaf gourd (Cucurbita ficifolia), pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata), winter squash (Cucurbita maxima), bottle gourd (Lagenaria sciceraria) and sponge gourd (Luffa cylindrica) and grafting was made using hole insertion grafting (HIG) and side grafting (SG) methods and the grafting success rate was investigated 15 days and 30 days after grafting. There was a significant difference between the five rootstocks and two grafting methods regarding grafting success rate. The highest graft success per cent was recorded in the hole insertion grafting method with NS 408 (85.81% and 83.26%) and Green Long (85.00% and 82.35%) grafted on bottle gourd rootstock on 15 days and 30 days after grafting respectively. Whereas, SG recorded the highest graft success per cent of 42.80% and 40.38% with the graft combination of NS 408 and Green Long grafted on pumpkin rootstock respectively on 15 days after grafting and NS 408 (35.50%) and Green Long (33.30%) grafted on sponge gourd (Luffa cylindrica) rootstock on 30 days after grafting. In all the graft combinations hole insertion grafting method recorded the highest graft success per cent than the side grafting method and among the rootstocks used bottle gourd rootstock recorded the highest graft success per cent compared to other rootstocks taken for the study.