What is grafted bitter gourd?
Grafted bitter gourd is where technique in grafting is implemented by joining 2 different crops designated as rootstock and
scion.
Rootstock is usually a crop which has better resistance to different soil-borne pathogens and the scions are usually the
high yielding crops.
In practice, rootstocks are crops which have been bred to be resistant to different soil-borne pathogens.
It also helps to improve plant vigor and boost yield by longer harvesting period and tolerance to abiotic stress, good for
intercropping and consecutive planting at the same area offering farmers more benefits in different circumstances.
In East-West Seed, we have now tested and identified graft combinations using a highly resistant and good quality rootstock
with a high yielding scion variety of bitter gourd. Grafting in bitter gourd is already a practice in some countries using the
EWS bittergourd including the Philippines and Thailand.