Grafting is a technique used to enhance plant resistance to abiotic stresses, including
water scarcity. This study evaluated the effect of grafting cucumber plants onto a resistant
rootstock on the growth, yield, fruit quality, and water-use efficiency (WUE) under different
irrigation regimes. A factorial design was applied with two factors: (1) grafting status (grafted
vs. non-grafted plants), and (2) irrigation level [low (LIR, 60% of crop evapotranspiration),
medium (MIR, 80%), and high (HIR, 100%)]. The results demonstrated that grafted plants
significantly outperformed non-grafted ones in terms of vegetative growth, yield, and WUE.
Reduced irrigation (LIR, 60%) negatively decreased stem length (SL), number of leaves (LN),
leaf area (LA), fresh weight (FW), dry weight (DW), early yield (EY), total yield (TY), and
WUE relative to HIR, 100%. Notably, grafted plants irrigated under LIR occasionally
outperformed non-grafted plants under HIR, highlighting the potential of grafting to mitigating water stress in cucumber cultivation |
