Development of Robotic Grafting Systems for Fruit Vegetable Seedlings

The objectives of this research are to develop the grafting robots and an acclimatization chamber for watermelon, and tomato seedlings. For watermelon seedlings, a top plug-in robotic grafting system has been developed, which is applicable for grafting a scion into a mature rootstock before the scion’s cotyledons spread. It thus makes the scion to be very tender and greatly different from the rootstock at the seedling stage. Experimental results show that the grafting robotic system can accurately finish all grafting procedures and operations with an average success rate of 95%, and a working capability of 480 seedlings per hour. For tomato seedlings, a tubing-type grafting robot has been developed by using soft rubber tubes as the grafting material. This robotic grafting system is suitable for rootstock and scion of fruit-bearing vegetables that have the similar stem diameter. The experimental results indicate that the average grafting success rate is 95.5% with working capability of 327 seedlings per hour. To provide a suitable curing environment for seedlings after grafting, an acclimatization chamber, with a dimension of 540 x 265 x 210 cm, has also been developed. The chamber accommodates 12,960 seedlings if 72-cell trays were used. The experimental results indicate that the survival rate of grafted seedlings kept in the chamber is more than 96%. Seedlings which were acclimatized in the chamber after grafting showed a higher survival rate than those acclimatized under protected cover in the open field.