**2. Grafted tomato plants and cost implications**

There are cost implications in any grafting venture, and these must be properly considered before beginning a grafting project. A positive or negative net return is mainly dependent on the cost of producing the grafted plants and the prevailing market price for the tomato fruits that will be produced [14]. Falling tomato prices coupled with high input cost for raw materials needed for grafting may result in some negative net returns. The net returns are also sensitive to the vigorousness of the rootstock and that the higher the marketable fruits, the higher the net returns. Costs of grafted plants (including seed, labor, and cost of other materials) have been estimated as \$0.78 per grafted plant for 1000 plants per season in a small nursery [15]. Other investigators have also estimated the production costs of grafted and non-grafted seedlings at \$0.67 and \$0.15 per plant, respectively, in the production of fresh market tomato in Florida, USA [14].

Generally, labor cost represents a small proportion of the total cost of grafting, and the majority of the cost goes into the purchase of root stock seeds that are specially bred and forms 36% of the total cost [16]. However, apart from the cost of seeds, other inputs such as grafting clips and building a humidity chamber serve as additional cost.

Grafted transplants are more expensive to produce per plant than nongrafted plants. Therefore, a lower cost of rootstock can easily boost the rate at which farmers adopt this technology [15].
