Performance of some spherical eggplant hybrids under plastic house and open field conditions

Abstract EN

Two experiments were conducted during the two winter seasons of 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 at the Agricultural Experimental Station of Faculty of Agriculture Cairo University Giza to investigate the response of four spherical F1 cultivars (Sawad El Laiel, Petra, Amedo and Black Berry) of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.

) under two different production systems (open field and plastic house), consider the vegetative growth, fruit quality and yield.

Plants grown in open field had higher values of number of branches, early and total yield, fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit total carbohydrate, vitamin C, macro and micro elements and significant increase in leaf dry matter, leaf concentrations of macro and microelements compared with plastic house production.

Reversely, planting in plastic house significantly increased plant height, leaf area and fruit dry matter compared with planting in open field.

The period from transplanting to first harvest was shorter in plants grown in open field than those grown in plastic house.

Meanwhile, there were no significant differences between production systems in leaf chlorophyll, fruit length, fruit contents of TSS, Ca, Mg, niacin and omega3 in both seasons.

The analysis showed significant differences among the different eggplant cultivars for all traits.

Sawad El Laiel' recorded the highest value of early and total yield, average fruit weight, total carbohydrate, TSS and leaf concentrations of K, Ca and B.

On the other hand, 'Amedo' significantly exceeded all other cultivars in chlorophyll reading and leaf concentrations of N, P, Mg, Fe, Mn and Zn as well as fruit diameter, fruit concentrations of N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, vitamin C, niacin (B3) Omega 3 and dry matter.

'Petra' was the earliest cultivar, while the 'Black Berry' was the latest one.

The interaction between cultivars and production systems had significantly influence on all traits under study.