Photosynthetic Physiological Response of Potato/Tomato Grafting under Seedling Stage Drought Stress

Purpose To investigate the photosynthetic physiological response of potato/tomato grafting under drought stress during the seedling stage.

Methods Useing the potato variety Dianshu 23 as the scion and the tomato variety Zhongyan 988 as the rootstock, a pot experiment was conducted to investigate the photosynthetic physiological response of potato/tomato grafts under different drought stress levels (PEG treated).

Results Regarding biological traits, compared with non-grafted group and self-root grafted groups, the potato/tomato grafted plants exhibited the greatest plant height and root dry weight across different PEG mass fractions , and their maximum root length and root number were about 1.3 times that of the above two groups, and the total leaf area per plant was significantly higher than that of the self-root grafting group. In terms of photosynthetic characteristics, compared with non-grafted and self-grafted groups, the potato/tomato grafted plants could still maintain relatively stable transpiration rate and water use efficiency under different mass fractions of PEG treatments, thus ensuring higher photosynthetic rate.

Conclusion The grafting method using tomato as rootstock can increase the drought resistance of potato scion under drought condition at seedling stage.