Vegetable grafting in Chilli

Chilli (Capsicum annuum L.) is one of the important commercial vegetable crop in India as well as important spice and condiment crop all over the world. Chilli can be grown in tropical and subtropical regions with warm and humid climate with temperature between 20- 25 ºC. Chilli cultivation has various limiting factors such as abiotic i.e. water stress heavy rainfall lodging due to weak root growth salt concentration chilling injury high temperature and biotic i.e. soil borne diseases viruses sucking pests and nematodes etc. The major objectives of vegetable grafting are to eliminate soil borne pests and problems from soil acidity and salinity other objectives are to increase productivity. Grafting used to increase uniformity vigour and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses of vegetatively propagated plants (i.e. fruit and ornamental trees and shrubs). Due to high post graft mortality of seedling grafting technology is still not well developed in India. For its commercial application in India sharpening of grafting skills and healing environment need to be standardized. Maintaining temperature in the optimal range (25°C to 28°C) and high RH (>95%) for healing.