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Best eggplant cultivars for outdoor soil cultivation

For gardeners

6 min read

GREENHOUSES AND COVERS G

In open soil, only early and some mid-season eggplant cultivars are guaranteed to ripen. Relying on large-fruited hybrids often does not pay off: they require complex care and do not surpass early-ripening counterparts in taste. For a stable harvest in unprotected soil, it is better to choose proven Siberian breeding (for example, the purple elongated cultivar Skorospely) or American novelties (the white-fruited cultivar Easter Egg).

  • Height of early-ripening cultivar bushes in August — up to 40 cm
  • Fruit weight of early-ripening cultivars — 50–150 g
  • Yield of the Skorospely cultivar per bush — 400–600 g
  • Fruit weight of the Donskoy-14 cultivar — 300–500 g
  • Consumption of Aschersonia suspension per 10 m² — 1.8–2 l

In terms of taste, dishes made from early-ripening eggplants do not differ from those made from large-fruited cultivars. Growing large-fruited hybrids that require special care in open soil makes no practical sense.

Recommended eggplant cultivars for open soil:

  • Sharovidny A-14. An early-ripening low-growing cultivar with greenish-purple stems. Fruits are spherical, large, and reach a weight of up to 400 g with proper care. The outer color of the fruits is soft lilac with green areas; the flesh is white, without bitterness. The cultivar is ready for consumption 10–12 days later than Skorospely.
  • Almaz. A mid-season cultivar; bush height reaches 60 cm. Fruits are up to 15–20 cm long, narrow, cylindrical, and glossy. The flesh is greenish, without bitterness, and contains few seeds.
  • Donskoy-14. A mid-season cultivar up to 60 cm high, susceptible to wilting. Fruits are elongated-pear-shaped with white flesh and can grow very large (300–500 g). Usually, no more than one or two full-weight fruits ripen on a bush.
  • Batayskie. Similar in characteristics to the Skorospely cultivar, but the bush and fruits are larger. Ripening times are somewhat later.
  • Korean. An undemanding cultivar with small round fruits of bright orange color with a bitter aftertaste.

    Korean eggplants cannot tolerate even short-term drought. When growing them, it is necessary to strictly control soil moisture.

Pest control for vegetable crops

Timely monitoring of pest populations allows avoiding significant harvest losses in open and protected soil.

  • Melon aphid. A small dark-green winged or wingless insect 1–2 mm long; the larva is yellow or green. Damages cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin, and pattypan squash. It settles on the underside of young leaves and on the ends of shoots, sucking out juices. It produces up to 8–10 generations per season. To control the pest, plants are sprayed with carbophos, trichlorometaphos-3, and other preparations.
  • Whitefly. A dangerous pest of cucumber and tomato in greenhouses; it sucks sap from plant cells. A biological method is used to control it: once before the appearance of the pest larvae, Encarsia is released at a rate of 1–2 individuals per plant. The fungal parasite Aschersonia is also used in the form of a spore suspension (10,000,000 per 1 ml), spraying the underside of leaves 3–4 times at intervals of 5–7 days.

    When using predatory insects (entomophages), the use of chemical Plant protection product plant protection products on plantings is strictly prohibited.

  • Large white butterfly (cabbage butterfly). A pest of cabbage, radish, turnip, and other cruciferous crops. It is a large butterfly with white wings and a black border. It lays eggs on the underside of the leaf, and the hatched caterpillars completely eat the leaves.
  • Flea beetles (cruciferous beetles). Small monochromatic insects with a metallic sheen and worm-like larvae. They damage radish, turnip, and radish plantings by making through-holes in the leaves.
  • Root mite. A small oval pest of onion and garlic. It lives on the underside of leaves and feeds on sap. It gnaws at the base of the bulb, causing it to become rotten inside.
  • Mole cricket. A brown insect about 50 mm long with digging legs and short elytra. It gnaws at the roots and small rootlets of tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, carrots, and cabbage.
  • Moth (cabbage, carrot, onion). Gray-brown butterflies with a dark fringe on the wings. Damage to plantings is caused by caterpillars hatching from laid eggs.
Moth species Wingspan, mm
Cabbage and carrot 14–18
Onion 8–10

Flies. Like moths, they are also represented by several varieties that cause damage to vegetable crops.

For effective protection of plantings, an agronomist needs to accurately identify the pests in the field. Diagnostic errors can lead to harvest loss and ineffective treatments. Various species of flies infest vegetable crops in both open and protected soil.

Pest Size, mm Color and features Infested crops
Cabbage fly 6–6.5 Ash-gray color Cabbage, radish, turnip, radish
Carrot fly 4–5 Black shiny abdomen with a greenish tint, brown head, yellowish legs Carrot, parsnip, parsley, celery
Onion fly 10 Light gray color, larvae — small white worms Onion, garlic, tulips, lettuce
Seedcorn fly 4–5 Ash-gray color Radish, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peas, pumpkin, etc.
Black fly 11–13 Covered with black hairs Cabbage, tomatoes, lettuce (dangerous for almost all plants)
Celery fly 4–5 Pink-yellow or pink-gray color with a sheen, wings with a dark-brown pattern Celery, parsley, parsnip, and other celery crops
Beet fly 6–8 Ash-gray color Beet, spinach

Soil, leaf-eating, and sucking pests

In addition to flies, hidden parasites, worms, and caterpillars pose a serious threat to vegetables. They damage both the underground parts of plants and the vegetative mass. To plan plant protection measures, it is important to distinguish them by body shape and the nature of the damage.

Nematodes affect the root system and stems of plants. Different species of these parasites have characteristic morphological features. Their presence leads to stunted growth of vegetable crops.

  • Root-knot nematodes: females are pear-shaped, males are worm-like. They cause damage to tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkin, and beet.
  • Potato cyst nematodes: the male is worm-like, the female is nearly spherical. They parasitize onions, garlic, and solanaceous crops.
  • Stem nematodes: small thread-like worms of a whitish color that harm onions and garlic.

Click beetles reach up to 20 mm in length and can be brown, black, or yellow. If you place such an insect on its back, it jumps with a click to flip over. The beetles themselves are not dangerous, however, their offspring pose a serious threat to the harvest.

The larvae of click beetles—yellow-brown worms that look like a piece of wire—cause damage to crops. Slugs are also dangerous—worm-like mollusks covered in mucus that damage potatoes, cabbage, and carrots with their hard tongue featuring sharp teeth.

Cutworms (potato, cabbage, winter, and garden moths) harm plants at the caterpillar stage. Adult moths have various colorings ranging from yellowish-gray-violet to brownish-gray. Their caterpillars gnaw at vegetative organs and fruits.

Cutworm caterpillars prefer the following crops:

  • tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage;
  • onions, garlic;
  • beet, rhubarb;
  • peas, lettuce.

Aphids complete the list of dangerous pests for open and greenhouse environments. This is a very small insect of grayish-white or yellowish-green color with a characteristic waxy bloom. It causes mass damage to vegetable and melon crops.

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