Grafting of vegetable/fruit plants is one of the old techniques used for cultivation. Recently Indian Scientists have achieved a great milestone in production of two vegetables from a single plant. In India this is achieved by the scientists of ICAR- Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. As the prices of vegetables are hiking day by day so the technique of dual or multiple grafting will act as a boon to people as well as farmers. People could be able to grow two vegetables on a single plant at their homes by cultivating them in pots or at their terraces and for farmers they can earn more money by harvesting two species from the single plant reducing their cost of production and labour.
What is the need of Dual grafting or Multiple grafting?
Dual grafting or multiple grafting of plants is basically the need of an hour so as to produce two or more than two vegetables/fruits on a single plant. As, the surplus population of India which is still increasing is one of the main reasons giving rise to industrialization, scarcity of agricultural lands, food scarcity and to combat various biotic and abiotic stress aroused due to all these activities, dual grafting is necessary so that there will be enough food available to feed the population.
The climate change and the unpredictable monsoon fluctuations are affecting crop production badly. So, these types of alternative agricultural practices will be going to help in enhancing food production of fruits or vegetables with high yield. Thus, Dual and Multiple grafting emerged as a great tool in the production of two or multiple vegetables/fruits respectively by grafting scions of two or more plants together, among species belonging to the same family so as to enhance food productivity.
What is Brimato?
Brimato a graft of Brinjal and Tomato is a recent innovation produced by Indian Scientists by employing the technique of dual grafting. In Brimato plant both Brinjal and Tomato are grown and harvested from the single plant. Here the rootstock was obtained from Brinjal and the scion was from Tomato. The Brimato plant receives its sturdy qualities of Brinjal for withstanding excessive drought and waterlogging conditions. Development of Brimato through dual grafting technology will be beneficial for food production in urban and suburban regions where there is a limitation of area available for agriculture and via this technique vegetables can be grown in small areas as in vertical gardening, terrace farming, pot culture etc.
How Brimato is developed?
The technique or the methodology applied for the development of Brimato was carried out by grafting between Brinjal seedlings which were about 25 to 30 days old and Tomato seedlings which were about 25 days old. The grafting was performed by applying Side/Splice method in which slant cuts of 5-7mm at an angle of 45 degrees was made in the rootstock and the scion both. After grafting the seedlings were subjected to a controlled set of atmospheric conditions for providing the newly grafted seedlings an optimum temperature, light and humidity necessary for their growth, this was done initially for about 5-7 days and then the seedlings were kept in partial shade for next 5-7 days.
After the initial or primitive incubation time period of 15-18 days of the newly grafted plants, they were transplanted into the fields. It is important to take proper care of plants in the initial days of field transplant at their early growth stage so that both the Brinjal and Tomato scions will achieve a balanced growth, in addition to this remove any shoots that arise from the plant below the graft region. NPK fertilizers were applied to support their growth and after 60-70 days after planting, fruiting will start in both Brinjal and Tomato
Experimentation conducted on cultivation of Brimato claimed to produce anout 36 fruits with an yield of 2.4 kgs were harvested in case of Tomato plant and 2.7 kgs from approximately 9 fruits per plant in case of Brinjal. Commercialization of Brimato is still in pipeline and research is being continued at ICAR- IIVR, Varanasi, U. P. Earlier at ICAR-IIVR successful field demonstration of Pomato a dual graft of Potato and Tomato was also developed.