Nevada specialty crop growers are challenged by a short growing season and slow establishment of warm-season crops (Bristow, 2021a). At the same time, there is increased demand for local, organically produced vegetables in Nevada’s urban areas (Gatzke, 2012; Curtis et al., 2010). Organic farming is one of the fastest-growing segments of U.S. agriculture (Greene et al., 2009), and sales of locally produced organic products have more than doubled in Nevada from $7.5 million in 2012 to $18.9 million in 2017 (USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2017). Further, food insecurity in Nevada is on the rise due to the recent pandemic and subsequent inflationary food prices (Solis, 2021; Stewart, 2022). Together, these factors represent an opportunity for Nevada growers to increase crop diversity and to adapt to climate uncertainty (Walia, 2020).
The total number of farms producing vegetables and cantaloupes in Nevada is 102. This represents close to 3% of the total market value of agricultural products sold in Nevada in (USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2017). According to the Nevada Department of Agriculture (2014), vegetables and cantaloupes represent close to 15% of the total cash receipts from farm marketing in Nevada. Yet, farmers struggle to identify strategies to help them increase their market competitiveness in an arid climate with wide variance in day/night temperatures. After tomatoes, species in the Cucurbitaceae family are the most consistently cropped species in Nevada (USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2017). Cantaloupes, in particular, perform well under arid conditions and are good candidates for more widespread production in the southwestern U.S. (Southwest Regional Climate Hub and California Sub Hub, 2016). Although cantaloupes are sensitive to freezing temperatures at all growth stages, they are relatively heat-resistant and may also tolerate the increasing water limitation predicted as a result of climate change.
In fact, there is a history of the cantaloupe industry in Nevada as early as the 1950s (NevadaGrown, n.d.). Nevada’s high-altitude climate was said to produce cantaloupes with superior flavor. However, the market never took off because of shelf life and shipping issues with the cantaloupe variety used at that time. More recently, the local food movement has stimulated a resurgence in demand for Nevada cantaloupes, but strategies are needed to make the production of cantaloupes cost-effective and sustainable by overcoming biotic and abiotic stresses.
overcoming biotic and abiotic stresses (Kubota et al., 2008). We hypothesized that rootstocks could help with warm-season vegetable and cantaloupe production in Nevada. Use of rootstocks for vegetable production has increased mainly in the families Cucurbitaceae and Solanaceae (Kyriacou et al., 2017), both of which include major crops grown in Nevada. Rootstock technology involves grafting the scion of the desired plant variety onto the rootstock of a related species bred to confer some benefit to the crop. Rootstocks in vegetable production are mainly developed to overcome soil-borne pathogens and pests (King et al., 2010; Kubota et al., 2008), but they can also confer desirable root traits to facilitate nutrient and water uptake under abiotic stress (Bristow et al., 2021b; Schwarz et al., 2010), and they could help increase yields under organic production (Caradonia et al., 2020). However, we were unsure whether Nevada specialty crop growers were interested or ready to adopt rootstock technology; thus, we designed a grower survey with the following objectives:
- To discover the challenges experienced by specialty crop growers that could affect potential crop yield
- To explore potential grower interest in using grafted (rootstock) crop plants to enhance crop biotic and abiotic stress tolerance.
Nevada specialty crop growers are small scale, but they manage highly diversified farms. The major crops grown include many in the Cucurbitaceae and Solanacae families, including cantaloupes and tomatoes. Rootstocks have been developed to overcome both biotic and abiotic stresses in these crops. Cantaloupes, in particular, are well-adapted to arid climates, and there is interest among growers in expanding the cantaloupe market. Rootstock technology may prove useful in overcoming the barriers to cantaloupe production in Nevada, such as crop establishment and disease tolerance, and growers are cautiously optimistic about their use. Adoption of rootstock technology will require research on the most effective rootstocks for the production of cantaloupes and other specialty crops in Nevada’s climate, and education and training will be needed to ensure effective use of the technology.
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