How to pinch eggplants in the open field and greenhouse?

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Gardeners know how important it is to pinch and shape tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. But is it necessary to stepson eggplants? "Purple" - rather whimsical plants that, without giving them due attention, will not please with a good harvest. However, it is difficult for novice gardeners and gardeners in a heap of various kinds of advice from experienced people to figure out if eggplants need a pinching procedure. Let's figure it out together.

Features of eggplant

As we have already noted, eggplant is a rather capricious garden dweller. Strong drafts, both drought and high humidity are destructive for him, he is quite picky about the temperature regime and lighting conditions. In addition to this, many garden pests like to eat eggplant (by the way, there is an opinion that the purple fruit is not a vegetable, but a berry).

Seedlings should be planted outdoors only after the temperaturethe soil warms up to +15 degrees, otherwise it will simply die. But at the same time, it is impossible to delay planting - this can result in a decrease in yield up to 60%. Keep the following in mind:

• The eggplant site should be open, sunny, but at the same time protected from strong winds.
• Soil - light sandy or loamy. For a different type of substrate, fertilizer with peat or humus is needed.
• Heavy soil will be improved by river sand, cutting straw or sawdust.
• To protect plants from pest invasion, when planting, it will not be superfluous to treat the substrate with wood ash or a mixture of phytosporin and manganese.

What is a stepchild?

Before you decide whether you need to stepson eggplant or not, let's deal with this term. Pasynkovanie is the removal of lateral leaves or shoots of a plant. In the people, these parts are called "stepchildren", which is why the procedure got such a slightly strange name. These manipulations are carried out to form the necessary type of bush, its general strengthening, which ultimately leads to a richer harvest.

It is for the development of unnecessary "stepchildren" that plants determine an impressive share of their energy and resources, taking it from the emerging fruits. Therefore, side leaves and shoots should be removed periodically - otherwise you will expect a poorer harvest. On non-stemmed bushes, eggplants are smaller, sometimes deformed, with reduced taste. And sometimes part of themovaries fall off before they even have time to ripen.

So do eggplant stepchildren? Yes, this is a prerequisite for obtaining a good "purple" crop. But not for all cases.

When is pinching not needed?

Let's list the cases in which the stepson procedure will be superfluous:

• Low-growing varieties. These varieties of eggplant by their nature have an average leaf mass and are able to form a bush on their own.
• Open ground. Some gardeners are wondering how to stepson eggplants in the open field. We do not advise you to turn to this procedure - additional leaves do not interfere with the development of plants in the beds, on the contrary, they protect the top layer of soil from rapid drying. Yes, it should be noted that in plants planted in open ground, the leaf mass is not formed very intensively.

Staging required

But to the question of whether eggplants grow in a greenhouse, we will answer in the affirmative. In the greenhouse microworld, an increased level of humidity and air temperature is most often observed. Such an environment, just the same, is estimated by the plant as the most favorable for growth in breadth - the formation of additional leaves, side shoots. Therefore, greenhouse eggplants are definitely indispensable without pinching.

However, you need to start the procedure on time - before the buds form on the plant.

How to stepchild eggplant?

Proper pinching is a combination of two factors:

• Correctdetermining the date of the first procedure.
• The optimal scheme for the formation of a bush of each plant.

It is best to start dealing with unwanted additional shoots in the third week after you arrange the seedlings in a permanent place. At this moment, eggplants have already quite managed to take root, but have not yet directed their forces towards intensive growth. After the first pinching, do not forget to consistently repeat this procedure once every two weeks.

Follow these simple and important rules:

• Before pinching, be sure to tie up the bushes - from a large number of ovaries, the planting can simply break. To do this, a wire is stretched over the rows of plants, to which each eggplant is tied with twine or rope. A garter is needed under each branch of the bush.
• Do not perform the procedure in both too dry and too wet weather. Such conditions can provoke the development of infectious processes in the damaged area of the stem.
• The best time for pinching is morning. During the day, the eggplant bush will have time to "heal" its wound.

Staging schemes

How to stepson eggplant in a greenhouse? Choose from three patterns:

• In one stem. This formation is used for weak landings, as well as for the tallest. First of all, the growth point is pinched - it is better to do this after the plant is at least 30 cm long. Leave only the topmostescape - the rest must be removed. Processing will also require ovaries - only the largest ones will have to be left.
• In two stems. The top pinches. Then you observe the development of the plant - leave only the two strongest shoots, remove all other stepchildren.
• In several stems. This scheme, accordingly, is applicable for the he althiest and most powerful plantings. It is better to use it when there is a lot of space in the greenhouse, but there are few seedlings. Here, too, you should pinch the top, but leave not one, but several shoots - 3-5. The number of ovaries can also be large. Usually, gardeners initially leave only two shoots, and then, watching the development of the bush, they leave one or a couple of the strongest stepchildren.

Let's tell you how to stepson eggplants according to a slightly different pattern:

• At the first stage (from 14-20 days after planting the plant in the ground), you pinch (stepchild) the plant only in its lower part - remove additional stems, leaves, weak ovaries.
• The top of the leaf is pinched only after the end of the growing season. This will be an impetus so that the plant does not spend energy on growth in length, but directs it to the development of fruits.

Working with skeletal branches

Those shoots that you left - one, two or more - are called skeletal branches. They, too, cannot be ignored. How to stepson eggplant next?

In addition to removing branches and leaves that reappear at the bottom of the bush, you need tobranching to determine only one most actively developing fetus. All the rest pinch after the second leaf above the ovary. This should be done with every branch. This work will help the formation of 5-12 large full-fledged fruits on each bush.

Staging procedure

Staging is not the most difficult procedure in gardening. But to achieve good results, you need to know the following about how to stepson eggplant:

• Do not use secateurs in your work, do it with your own hands. If you still use garden tools, then be sure to disinfect it before pinching, otherwise there is a risk of infection in the wound on the stalk.
• The consequence of the previous paragraph will be a mandatory disinfection procedure for both hands and tools after working with each of the bushes. This happens so that if one plant is affected by a disease, this infection does not spread to others.
• Did you notice that the plant got sick or suddenly went limp? Then bypass it with the stepson procedure - it will weaken even more from it. Proceed to the formation of a bush only when the bush is fully restored.
• If the greenhouse has a fairly dry microclimate, then do not remove the lower leaves - they help retain moisture in the substrate.
• Deformed leaves and ovaries should be removed without regret - this may be a sign of the development of a disease in a plant.
• If you are a supporter of organic fertilizers, then in the case of eggplant, trydo not overdo it - the bush reacts to such top dressing with the rapid growth of additional stems and leaves, and only then with the development of ovaries.
• If you notice. that they overdid it with pinching the lower leaves, then the soil around the plant should be mulched so that now the mulch protects it from drying out.

Formation of outdoor plants

Many gardeners are engaged in stepping eggplants and in the open field. But they do it according to a modified scheme:

• Removing extra shoots.
• On strong shoots with an ovary, the top is pinched.
• Systematic removal of stepchildren that interfere with the development of the main shoots.

Stepping open ground eggplant must be very selective. Your main goal here is not to let the bushes interfere with the development of each other, and also to ensure free air circulation between them.

On this, our story about how to stepson eggplants of open ground and greenhouse varieties has come to an end. The formation of a bush is an important and in some cases necessary procedure, but its success is determined by the correct timing and the right scheme for each plant.