Pocket eggplant flowers, fruits, seeds and flowering and fruiting period

Today I will introduce to you a kind of pocket eggplant, including its shape and characteristics:

Pocket eggplant morphological characteristics

Eggplant is an annual herbaceous plant of the genus Solanum in the Solanaceae family.

Mini Eggplant

root

Eggplant has a well-developed root system, which is the main root system. The main root is thick and strong, with vigorous vertical growth, reaching a depth of more than 1.5 meters and a horizontal distribution of more than 1 meter. The main root group is in the soil layer 30 cm below the surface. The root system lignifies early and has poor regeneration ability, so it is not suitable for multiple transplants.

stem

The stem is erect, relatively sturdy, highly lignified, and has a pseudo-double branch. When the main stem grows to a certain node, the top bud turns into a flower bud, and the two lateral buds below the flower bud form the first branch. After the two branches grow the second to third leaves, the tops of the two branches form flower buds again. The two axillary buds below them form lateral branches in the same way. This growth repeats. Although the eggplant has lush stems and leaves, the branches grow slowly, and it is easy to maintain a balance between vegetative growth and reproductive growth.

leaf

Eggplant leaves are single, alternate, oval or elliptical. Tall plants have narrow leaves and open branches; short plants have wider leaves. The color of the stems and leaves is related to the color of the fruit. The young branches and petioles of purple eggplant varieties are purple; the young branches and petioles of white and green eggplant varieties are green.

Flowers, fruits, seeds

The flowers are bisexual and solitary. Most of the miniature varieties grow in clusters and in racemes. They are generally self-pollinated, with few natural hybrids. The flowers are white or purple, and the calyx is persistent. According to the length of the style, they can be divided into long-style flowers, medium-style flowers, and short-style flowers. The stigma of the long osmanthus flower is higher than the pollen sac, the flowers are large and dark in color, and they are healthy flowers; the stigma of the short-style flower is lower than the pollen sac, and it is an imperfect flower. Its pollen is not easy to fall on the stigma and cannot bear fruit normally. The medium-style flower and the long-style flower have the ability to bear fruit. The branching and fruiting habits of eggplant are very regular, and each branch bears a fruit. The first fruit is called the door eggplant, the second layer of fruit is called the opposite eggplant, the third layer is called the four-mother bucket, the fourth layer is called the eight-sided wind, and the fifth layer is called the starry sky.

The fruit of eggplant is a berry. It can be round, oblate, or horn-shaped. The fruit color can be dark purple, bright purple, white, or green. The single fruit weight of mini eggplant is relatively small, generally less than 100 grams.

Eggplant seeds develop late, and only mature when the fruit is ripe. The seeds are flat, round or oval. The seed coat is brown and shiny, and the weight of 1,000 seeds is 4 to 5 grams. The lifespan is 5 years, and the useful life is 2 to 3 years.

Fertility cycle

The growing period of eggplant can be divided into germination period, seedling period and flowering and fruiting period.

Germination period

The germination period is from the time the seeds absorb water and sprout to the time the first true leaf appears, which takes about 10 to 12 days.

Seedling stage

The seedling stage is from the appearance of the first true leaf to the appearance of buds. The seedling stage is mainly vegetative growth before 3 to 4 leaves, but the growth is very small. Flower bud differentiation begins at the 3 to 4 leaf stage. Generally, one inflorescence only produces 1 to 2 flowers. If one inflorescence can produce multiple inflorescences, the first 1 to 2 flowers to open are normal long-style flowers. Under suitable conditions, the seedling stage is 50 to 60 days.

Flowering and fruiting period

After the eggplant buds appear, it enters the fruiting period. In the early fruiting period, the vegetative and reproductive growth of eggplants are very vigorous. After the four-mother-dou fruiting period, it enters the late fruiting period. At this time, the vegetative growth gradually weakens. When it enters the eight-sided wind fruiting period, although there are many fruits, the weight of each fruit decreases, and the yield also begins to drop significantly.

The development of eggplant fruit goes through the budding stage, petal exposure stage, flowering stage, petal withering stage, staring stage, commercial maturity stage and physiological maturity stage. Generally, it takes 8 to 12 days from flowering to staring stage, 13 to 14 days from staring stage to commercial maturity stage, and about 30 days from commercial maturity to physiological maturity stage. Before the eggplant stares, the fruit mainly divides and increases the number of cells, and the fruit grows slowly; after staring, the fruit mainly expands the flesh cells and the fruit grows rapidly. The degree of coloring on the eggplant surface is closely related to the light intensity and the length of exposure time. The base of the fruit grows faster near the sepals. The surface of the fruit near the sepals is white at first because the sepals block the light and do not see the light. It will turn purple, red or blue after 2 to 3 days of exposure outside the sepals. Due to the different daily growth speeds and light exposure time of eggplants, 3 to 4 layers of different shades can be formed. The wider the white part, the faster the fruit grows. This part is commonly known as the eggplant eye. When the white part begins to appear, it means the staring stage begins. When there is little white part, it means the fruit grows slowly and has reached the commercial maturity stage.