In order to get a high crop of eggplants on your plot, you must not be late with sowing seeds for seedlings, and this must be done before mid-February. If you sow later, your plants will not bloom until late summer because eggplant has a long growing season (more than 100 days).
Presowing protection of eggplant seeds from diseases
Before sowing seeds, they must be kept for thirty minutes in a strong solution of potassium permanganate. Then rinse well under a running stream of cold water and moisten with a nutrient solution. To prepare it, you need to dissolve a teaspoon of ash in a liter of water. If there is no ash at hand, then it can be replaced with liquid sodium humate or nitrophoska.
In the resulting warm (+28 degrees) solution, the seeds are dipped in gauze bags for a day. Thanks to this treatment, eggplants will grow faster, and you will take off the first harvest much earlier.
After that, the seeds must be removed from the solution, lightly moistened with water, put on a plate and left in a warm place for 2 days. During this time, the seeds will hatch. Now they can be sown in seed boxes, and after 5 days you will see the first shoots.
Common diseases of eggplant seedlings
In order to prevent the inevitable death of the plant, you need to understand the causes of eggplant disease well and know its external distinguishing features.
One of the most common plant diseases is blackleg. It is caused by a fungus that causes darkening and wilting of the root collar. If urgent measures are not taken, then this disease will cover the entire plant, and it will wither. In places with high humidity, the disease spreads in just a matter of hours.
Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to cure the plant, but the disease of the "black leg" is quite possible to prevent.
Prevention of eggplant disease
The affected plant must be urgently removed along with a small clod of earth, and the soil remaining in this place should be disinfected with a small amount of bleach. Seedlings should be systematically thinned out.
But the most serious are eggplant bacterial diseases, these include "black bacterial spot". It affects the whole plant.
In the beginning, single black spots appear, with a yellow border on the sides. These spots begin to grow until the entire plant is covered with them. If this happens, then the fruits of eggplant should not be eaten. In order to prevent the appearance of this formidable eggplant disease, it is necessary to spray the plants with a special bacterial preparation "Barrier" - at a dosage of 3 caps per liter of water.
In addition to the above diseases, there are others, no lessdangerous and should always be remembered. These include - gray rot, verticillium and fomospsis.
Eggplant pests
Probably the most dangerous and voracious pest is the Colorado potato beetle. For a beetle, nothing tastes better than a young eggplant plant, and he loves them more than potatoes.
The second most popular is the spider mite. It can completely suck out all the juices from the plant, unless, of course, emergency measures are taken. The first wave of the onslaught of the pest is replaced by the second wave, when a new generation of pests appears in a couple of weeks.
Don't mind eating eggplant and aphids. She, like a tick, sucks juices from a plant. To prevent its appearance, it is necessary to spray the plants with preparations such as Karbofos and Aktara during the flowering period. These chemicals are universal and thanks to them all eggplant pests are destroyed.
In order to destroy naked slugs, you need to keep the eggplant plantings clean, from time to time dust the aisles with freshly slaked lime and, of course, constantly loosen the soil.
