Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research

Charles Melnyk: Towards a molecular understanding of plant grafting

Date: Mar 11, 2026
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Charles Melnyk
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden
Location: MPIPZ
Room: Lecture hall
Host: George Coupland

Portrait

Since ancient times, people have cut and joined tissues together to combine the best properties of two different plants. Grafting is widely used in horticulture to increase stress tolerance, improve disease resistance and promote yields. However, we have a limited understand of how different plant species can successfully fuse and connect their vasculatures to grow as one. Here, I will present my group’s efforts to understand the molecular and genetic basis for how plants successfully graft. I will discuss our recent work using Arabidopsis thaliana grafting to understand the physiology, genes and pathways involved in successful graft formation including the role of transcription factors, sugars and cell walls. I will also discuss molecular determinants that control stem cell proliferation versus de novo organogenesis at the cut site. Finally, graft incompatibility is a major cause of graft failure and I will present our work on understanding and overcoming this phenomenon focusing on the role of auxin and using the tomato-pepper incompatibility system. Altogether, our research sheds light on how different plants fuse to grow as one, and provides clues for improving grafting success rates.