The need to increase marketable tomato yields and decrease losses due to sunburn and disease during the summer motivates farmers to adopt additional cultural practices such as shading and grafting. Grafting and shading in tomato production might be considered as cultivation practices to increase the marketable tomato yield. A decrease in sugar content increased the uptake of some micro elements (Fe and Zn) and macro elements (Ca). In some cases, firmer and less elastic skin may be expected due to grafting. Shading with pearl net might result in fruit with lower firmness and higher total, and particularly malic, acid content.
Source: Milenković, L., Mastilović, J., Kevrešan, Ž., Bajić, A., Gledić, A., Stanojević, L., Cvetković, D., Šunić, L. and Ilić, Z.S. (2020), Effect of shading and grafting on yield and quality of tomato. J Sci Food Agric, 100: 623-633. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.10057