ABSTRACT
Grafting has a long history in fruit trees, but commercial grafting in vegetable crops is relatively new (Ashtia et al., 1977; Sakata et al., 2007). The rst reports of vegetable grafting were published in China, Japan, and Korea, and recently, it has been commercially performed. For extending grafting methods, plastic covers were used following cultures under greenhouse conditions. For the rst time, cucurbit grafting was done in Japan and Korea, and 40 years later, around 1990, it was introduced to the Western countries. The rst grafting practice was reported in Japan in 1930; Citrullus lanatus was grafted on Lagenaria siceraria L. rootstocks. Grafting is a successful, professional, and positive method in vegetable production, so some producers try to introduce suitable seeds of scion and rootstock for each specic purpose, although it has some negative points, such as more facilities are required (Sakata et al., 2007; Cushman and Huan, 2008; Davis et al., 2008).
