It is now possible for a robot to automatically graft vegetable and fruit plants, lifting a burden off farmers’ shoulders.

For the first time ever, the Rural Development Administration (RDA) has developed and commercialized a robot that can be used to graft both cucurbitaceae fruits and vegetables, such as watermelon and cucumber, as well as solanaceous vegetables, like pepper or tomato.


Upon pressing a button, the robot can automatically recognize the size and characteristics of the vegetable or fruit to be grafted. When the operator inserts both a shoot and a parent stock, the piece onto which the shoot is going to be grafted, the robot conveys, cuts and connects the two pieces of plants.

The robot can process 600 to 900 shoots and parent stocks per hour, depending on the operator, and it is two to three times more productive than using the traditional manual process. The way in which the two parts are connected is consistent and the rate of shoot survival is 95 percent, which is higher than the manual process.

The robot was developed in 2008 and 80 of them are now in use in 13 countries around the world including Italy, Mexico, the United States, China, Russia, Greece, Japan and Spain.

“We intend to improve the robot, boost its quality and help ease the shortage of farmers,” said an RDA official.

The robot was recently chosen as one of Korea’s “world class products” by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, which together plan to help promote the robot in overseas markets.

By Limb Jae-un
Korea.net Staff Writer
jun2@korea.kr