Detailed Explanation of Key Points on Eggplant Planting and Cultivation Techniques
Eggplant is a particularly common home-style dish. There are also quite a few varieties of eggplant, with shapes including long and round eggplants, and colors including purple, green, white, and more, among which purple is the most common type we see. Below, let's take a closer look with the editor at eggplant planting and management techniques.
Eggplant Cultivation Techniques
1. For the eggplant planting plot, choose a field with fertile soil and convenient drainage and irrigation, with rice as the previous crop or where no Solanaceae crop has been grown in the previous three years, plow deeply and sun-bleach the soil, and break the clods into fine pieces. While preparing the land, apply 50—80 kg of lime powder per mu to disinfect the soil and adjust the pH. Eggplant has strong fertilizer tolerance and a high fertilizer requirement. Before transplanting, apply sufficient base fertilizer (2,000 kg of decomposed farmyard manure and 50 kg of compound fertilizer per mu), and plant on raised beds. The bed height is about 30 cm, the bed width including furrows is 1.8 m, with double-row planting and a plant spacing of 45—50 cm, planting about 1,400 plants per mu. For single-row planting, the bed width including furrows is 1.3 m, with a plant spacing of 45 cm, planting about 1,000 plants per mu. After field planting, water thoroughly with settling water; after the seedlings survive, stop watering to promote deep rooting.
2. Choose varieties suited to the local climate, with excellent quality, strong disease resistance, and good market demand.
3. Seed treatment. The rootstock is sown 25-30 days earlier than the scion. Use 40-50 g of scion seed per mu. The scion seed must be disinfected: scald the seeds with water at 50-55°C, stirring while pouring the water so the seeds remain floating, until the water temperature drops to 30°C, then remove them; after they are slightly dry, soak them in a 1% potassium permanganate solution for 10-15 minutes, take them out and wash them clean, then soak them in 30°C water for 12-24 hours, until the seeds are completely soaked through. During soaking, rub repeatedly with your hands to rub off the mucus on the seed surface; after soaking through, remove them, wrap them well in clean gauze, and place them at 25-30°C for germination. During germination, rinse with clean water 1-2 times a day; generally after 4-5 days, 80% will have sprouted, and they should be broadcast onto the seedbed in time.
4. Sowing. Eggplant is sown by broadcasting. To make the broadcast seeds distribute evenly on the seedbed or seedling tray, before sowing you may mix some fine sand into the germinated seeds to loosen them. If the broadcast seeds are unevenly distributed, you can use bamboo skewers, twigs, thin iron rods, and the like to spread out the denser seeds evenly.
Field Management
After eggplant is field-planted, loosen the soil early and often, and topdress early, to raise soil temperature, loosen the soil, and encourage vigorous growth. Eggplant likes fertilizer and tolerates it; in addition to the seedling-promoting fertilizer, topdress once when fruiting begins, and apply a heavy fertilizer once after the first layer of fruit is harvested to meet the needs of the peak fruiting period. Eggplant has a large leaf area and a high water requirement; in the early growth stage, keep the soil alternately dry and moist, and after heavy fruiting, irrigate thoroughly; during the rainy plum-rain season, also pay attention to drainage. Eggplant has large leaves and tall plants, and the roots of transplanted seedlings do not go deep into the soil; to prevent soil compaction, cultivate before the plants close the rows, and combine this with earthing up to prevent lodging.
Eggplant flower and fruit drop can be caused by too-low nighttime temperatures, too-high daytime temperatures, soil drought, insufficient light, poor nutrition, and so on. If the nighttime temperature before early May is below 15°C, to prevent flower drop caused by low temperature, treat the flowers with a 30 ppm 2,4-D solution, or spray the flowers with 40 ppm water-soluble fruit-setting hormone.
To improve ventilation and light penetration for eggplant, remove the side branches below the first flower. After the first and second fruits of the eggplant are harvested, too many basal leaves affect ventilation and light penetration, so remove some yellow and old leaves to reduce disease.
Late-Stage Management
1. After eggplant is field-planted, the biggest difficulty is insufficient ground temperature, so during the low-temperature season after planting, strengthen cold protection and heat preservation. For 7-10 days after planting, keep the room temperature above 30°C to raise ground temperature, supplement nighttime temperature, and help the seedlings recover as quickly as possible. Also try to keep the ground temperature stable at 16-18°C. After the seedling recovery period, the plants begin normal growth, and every day you must pay attention to lifting the curtain to let in light; insufficient light can very easily cause flower drop. After seedling recovery, the first eggplant flower opens and the plant enters the fruiting stage; at this time, pay attention to regulating the balance between vegetative growth and reproductive growth, and lower the room temperature to 25-30°C during the day and 15-17°C at night, so that the eggplant can both flower and fruit and have luxuriant branches and leaves. When the room temperature exceeds 25°C, begin appropriate ventilation to remove excess moisture indoors, increase carbon dioxide content, raise light intensity, and reduce flower drop. Even on cloudy days, insist on appropriate ventilation, only paying extra attention to the amount and duration of ventilation.
2. After eggplant is field-planted and watered with seedling recovery water, do not water again until the first eggplant flowers open, and do not water or fertilize again until the first eggplants generally grow to 3 cm. The first fertilizer and water application can be somewhat larger, applying 10-20 kg of ammonium sulfate or 1,000 kg of manure slurry per mu. When the second eggplant begins to swell, give the second fertilizer and water; afterward, apply fertilizer and water once every 10-15 days; in the middle and late fruiting stages, do not lack water or fertilizer.
3. Eggplant is a light-loving crop, but under winter-spring cultivation in a solar greenhouse, natural light can hardly meet its needs, causing the plants to grow leggy, produce short-stigma flowers, and cause deformed fruit. Therefore, in addition to cleaning the greenhouse roof every day, also hang reflective screens to narrow the light difference between the middle and rear parts of the greenhouse and increase light intensity.
4. Before eggplant flowering and after fruit set, spray the leaves with Rujin planting-specific solution (stock solution); by supplementing beneficial bacteria for eggplant, it can serve the purpose of increasing the fruit-setting rate and can also reduce plant diseases.
Harvesting and Seed Saving
The harvest standard for eggplant can be judged by the color of the eggplant eye; if the eggplant eye and the fruit skin color are distinct, it indicates the fruit is still growing, the tissue is tender, and the quality is good. If the eggplant eye is not obvious, it indicates slow growth and it should be harvested in time. In warm weather, 18-20 days after flowering is the suitable harvest time. In the high-temperature weather from June to August, harvest in the morning or evening; at noon the fruit temperature is high and respiration is vigorous, making it easy for the fruit to shrivel, and special attention should be paid to thin-skinned varieties and eggplants supplied to other regions or transported over long distances.
Seed-saving eggplants should be planted sparsely, with increased phosphate and potassium fertilizer and less nitrogen fertilizer. In field management, pay attention to pinching the whole plant, setting up supports to prevent lodging, and for long fruits, prop them up with short bamboo poles to prevent the fruit from contacting the soil and rotting. Generally, 2-3 fruits can be kept per plant; when the fruits turn yellow-brown, pick them and place them indoors to after-ripen for 7-10 days, so that the seeds separate from the flesh, then cut them into several pieces, mash them in water and rub out the seeds, wash them clean and dry them on cloth, avoiding exposing the seeds to the blazing sun.
Through the above content, I believe everyone has gained some understanding of growing eggplant. Although eggplant is very easy to grow, and quite a few households even grow a lot of eggplant, if you want to grow it on a large scale, you must pay attention to late-stage management and pest control, which is one of the important ways to increase yield.