Selection of grafting rootstock for eggplant

The disease resistance of grafting mainly depends on the disease resistance of rootstocks. According to the results of many years of research and application at home and abroad, the excellent rootstocks widely used in production are Japanese eggplant, CRP and Tolubam.

(1) Japanese red eggplant. Also known as flat eggplant and red eggplant, it is an early rootstock variety used in foreign countries. The excellent characteristics of Japanese red eggplant as rootstock are high resistance to Fusarium wilt, medium resistance to Verticillium wilt, developed root system and sturdy stem. The internodes are shorter, there are thorns on the stems and leaves, and there are more spines. Seeds white, shaped like chili seeds, thick kidney-shaped, long 4mm, wide 3mm. It is easy to germinate. After soaking seeds for 24 hours, the germination rate in 2 days is 23%. The germination rate in 3 days is 28%. The germination rate in 4 days is 93%. The seedling growth rate is the same as that of ordinary eggplant. Japanese red eggplant needs to be sown 7 days earlier than scion when it is used as rootstock, and the grafting method can be split grafting or oblique grafting. Because the range of disease resistance of red eggplant is narrow, it is not suitable to be used as rootstock in the land with severe Verticillium dahliae.

(2) CRP. CRP is also a kind of wild eggplant, named according to its origin. This variety has more thorns in stems and leaves, so it is also called eggplant. It is the latest excellent rootstock variety of eggplant grafted. CRP has high resistance to eggplant Verticillium wilt and is now an excellent rootstock variety widely used in the north of China.

The 1000-seed weight of CRP seeds is 2g, brown is nearly round, and the diameter is about 3mm. The seed germination rate is 7.4%, the 6d germination rate is 65.6%, the 8d germination rate is 93.44%.

CRP is resistant to quenching disease at seedling stage, but is easy to be infected with bacterial blight and is more resistant to low temperature, so it is suitable for eggplant to be cultivated as rootstock in autumn and winter.

In some places in Liaoyang City, CRP is used as rootstock to graft eggplant, and the effect is very good. There was no soil-borne disease in continuous cropping for 4 years. 2500 plants were planted per 667m2, the height of the plant was 1.8m-2.0m, the average number of eggplant picked was 35, and the yield was as high as 15000 kg.

(3) Thorubam. Torubam comes from Japan, which is highly resistant to or immune to soil-borne diseases such as Verticillium wilt, Fusarium wilt, bacterial wilt and root-knot nematode. It has developed root system, strong aboveground plant growth, long internodes, few thorns on stems and leaves, small seeds and a thousand-grain weight of about 1g. Under normal circumstances, seeds are not easy to germinate and need to be accelerated.