Grafting cucumber seedlings with pumpkin rootstock exhibited a strong ability to resist salt stress, may due to a higher soluble sugar content and sucrose metabolizing enzymes. In addition, rootstock-grafting maintain high activities and alleviates the changes of gene expressions of key enzymes involved in the glycolytic pathway under Ca(NO3)2 stress, which would contribute to the supply of continuous ATP and NAD(P)H, and thus alleviate the inhibition of cucumber seedling development induced by salt stress.