Why do eggplants bloom but fail to bear fruit?

The flowers on an eggplant plant determine how many eggplants it will bear in the season, but growers often run into a situation where the plant produces a lot of flowers yet bears few fruits, or even none at all. So what causes this? Let's take a look at the reasons behind it together.

1. Environmental factors

Because of a lack of systematic learning, most growers in our country often overlook the effects of sunlight and temperature on flowers, and therefore fail to pay attention to keeping them warm, which reduces the number of fruits. Temperatures below 15°C will cause flowers to freeze and drop, while fewer than 3 hours of suitable temperature during the flowering period will cause the pollination success rate of flowers to drop sharply, and a long rainy period will cause many flowers to be knocked off. These are all fairly common causes of flower drop, so growers should pay more attention to environmental factors.

2. Boron deficiency

Fertilizer is meant to help eggplant plants grow better, but unreasonable application of fertilizer can cause eggplant plants to bloom without bearing fruit. The mainstream fertilizers today are the three types: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, but what flowering actually needs is the element boron. If boron is insufficient, the flowers may very likely just wither outright and not bear fruit at all. If you notice batches of flowers on eggplant plants necrosing and withering in daily life, then it may be caused by a boron deficiency. Boron-containing fertilizer should be added promptly.

3. Pollination problems

Pollination has always been a troublesome issue for flowers; during the growth process, some flowers always fail to pollinate successfully for various reasons. This situation is easy to identify: if some flowers on an eggplant plant bloom very vigorously but do not bear fruit, then it is very likely a pollination problem. At this point, for better fruiting, you can choose to carry out hand pollination to increase the chances of bearing fruit.

4. Dense flowers

The last problem is relatively easy to solve. You will find that when a single eggplant plant has too many flowers, its flowering period will be very long, and even when other aspects are normal it will rarely bear fruit. This is because there are too many flowers, and the nutrients of the eggplant plant are not enough to support so many flowers setting fruit. In order for the other flowers to bear fruit, some of the weaker and smaller flowers need to be removed. You have to give something up to gain something.

The above are the problems that more easily arise when eggplant plants bloom but fail to bear fruit. Sometimes several of the above situations occur at the same time, so you must identify them carefully and not just apply methods blindly. For more related information, you can come to our website.