By Clint Thompson
Grafted plants provide watermelon growers a costly solution in their fight against fusarium wilt. Josh Freeman, regional sales manager with TriEst Ag Group, estimates the added costs to double what a normal watermelon plant would be.
While the added expense is not ideal, it provides farmers a guaranteed solution in their fight against the annual plant disease.
“It’s a decision tree with a massive fork in the road. Either you have fusarium and you’re going to grow grafted plants, or you have fusarium and you’re not going to grow watermelons,” said Freeman at this year’s Suwanee Valley Watermelon Institute. “It’s unfortunate that this is the only real tried and true solution. It’s unfortunate in the fact that it’s a costly control measure. But if a grower has limited access to land and they know they have fusarium, you’re either going to roll the dice and maybe you get 20% of your yield, or you’re going to plant grafted plants and you know you’re going to pick watermelons.”
Grafting Background
Fusarium wilt is one of the top limiting factors to watermelon production. Grafting, which is putting a root system in the ground that either doesn’t get the disease or doesn’t get it nearly as bad as the non-grafted plant, allows watermelon producers to plant a crop without fear of the disease limiting production. But growers must understand the added costs.
“It’s probably on a per-acre basis, probably 2x. It’s not a fractional change in plant cost, not at all,” Freeman said. “If you didn’t have this up-front cost, then you could take some risks on longevity and maybe not be able to get across the crop as much as you need to. When you have that up-front cost to start the season, you’ve got to make sure you get across those things as much as you can. I think cost is the primary limiting factor to its distribution in this area; anywhere really.”