Pratapsingh S. Khapte is presently investigating water stress tolerance in solanaceous vegetables through screening germplasm. This involves genotypes and wild species that are tolerant to water stress being used either directly as rootstocks or as a breeding line for hybrid rootstock development. These rootstocks are then utilized for solanaceous vegetable grafting (including tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers). In addition, Khapte is also associated with abiotic stress mitigation strategies in vegetable crops.