Vegetable grafting is developing worldwide to cope with biotic and abiotic stresses. This technique faces strong regional disparities and its potential to improve crop performances is currently underexploited in sub-Saharan Africa. This review explores the potential of grafting to increase and secure vegetable production in challenging production conditions in sub-Saharan Africa and to identify the obstacles to its adoption. The major conclusions that can be drawn from the review are (1) the capacity of vegetable grafting to overcome several agronomic challenges commonly encountered in sub-Saharan Africa particularly for soilborne diseases; (2) grafting does not systematically lead to higher yields since the performance of grafted plants is closely linked with the combination of scion-rootstock chosen; (3) resistant rootstocks to the local soilborne pathogens could be identified through short-term laboratory and field experiments whereas the improvement of the tolerance to abiotic stresses would require deeper knowledge on underlying mechanisms; (4) the significant increase in the cost of using grafted plants are warranted in systems where there are no other technical alternatives to manage biotic and abiotic stresses, where profitability per plant is high, or where the use of grafted plants makes it possible to reach a profitable niche market such as off-season or organic products; and (5) vegetable grafting should therefore be promoted by providing evidence for its profitability in different production systems (open field and greenhouse cultivation) combined with supply-side interventions to build or strengthen the capacity of nursery operators to provide a continuous supply of good-quality grafted plants.

Bacterial wilt (BW) is one of the most economically important diseases of tomato and eggplant in the tropics and subtropics, and grafting onto resistant rootstocks can provide an alternative and effective solution to manage soil-borne bacterial in these crops. This study was conducted to evaluate the BW resistance and agronomic potential of newly identified eggplant accessions as rootstocks for tomato grafting. Five BW resistant eggplant accessions (VI041809A, VI041943, VI041945, VI041979A, and VI041984) from the World Vegetable Center were evaluated as rootstocks for grafting with two different fresh market tomato cultivars (Victoria and TStarE) as scion under open field conditions in Taiwan. Graft compatibility using the tube grafting method as well as BW wilting percentage, disease index, fruit yield and quality parameters were assessed. All the rootstocks showed good graft compatibility (93% and above) and grafted plants showed low wilting percentage (0.0–20.0%) and disease index (0.0–20.8%) following inoculation with BW. Yield for the eggplant rootstock grafted tomato plants was higher compared to the non-grafted tomatoes and self-grafted tomato. Fruit quality was not affected by grafting, although some differences in antioxidant activities were observed. The new eggplant rootstocks can be considered as alternatives to the rootstocks currently used for commercial production of tomatoes during the hot-wet season.

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Since 2000, the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) has been promoting vegetable grafting technologies to manage soil-borne diseases (e.g., bacterial wilt) and abiotic stresses (e.g., waterlogging) in

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