Grafting observation of tomatoes on potatoes for urban and peri-urban agriculture in North Wollo Sirinka

Abstract

Pomato is a grafted plant developed by grafting tomato and potato with an objective to achieve both potato and tomato yield from a single plant for urban and peri- urban agriculture. In the study grafting between tomato and potato was done during october, 2018 at the screen house of Sirinka. 30 days old tomato seedlings were cleft grafted in a 20 days old potato seedling. Successful graft union was observed after two weeks of grafting. The grafted plants produced new branches and flowers. Mature fruits were ready to start harvest in about 110 days after grafting and harvesting was continuing up to 150 days. The result also showed that average fruits per plant in tomato were 18, average fruit weight 53 gram and an individual plant produce about 954 gram fruits. Edible potato tubers were ready to harvest at 120 days after grafting and yielding about 4-5 number of potato around 219.27 gram tuber from each plant (table 2). Though the experiment was conducted just as observation interest to show whether the graft succeeds or not. But after the completion of the study, it may be suggested that any home gardener, urban agriculture can practice this technique as an amazing satisfaction which may fulfill home requirement to some extend for both tomato and potato.