Methods for controlling pests and diseases of eggplant seedlings

Eggplants are more delicate plants than their relatives, peppers or tomatoes, and growing eggplant seedlings is much more difficult than any other garden crop. Eggplant seedlings can get burned even from a lamp that illuminates it in order to extend the daylight hours for plants.

The “torment” of the gardener begins almost from the moment you buy the soil in the store or make the soil mixture yourself. To begin with, before sowing eggplant seeds, it is necessary to disinfect the soil. Even when buying a ready-made mixture in a store, there is no guarantee that you will buy land that is clean from pathogens. With self-preparation of the mixture, it will most likely contain either a pest or an infection.

To disinfect the soil from pathogens, the soil can be shed abundantly with a solution of potassium permanganate. An even better option would be to ignite the soil mixture in the oven. This will destroy not only bacteria, but also multicellular organisms that can subsequently damage eggplant seedlings. When disinfecting, beneficial bacteria will also die, but nothing can be done about it.

After preparing the soil, it is the turn of eggplant seeds. They also need decontamination, unless the package indicates that the seeds have already undergone this procedure. Do not need disinfection and coated seeds.

Seed disinfection methods

At home, you can use one of two methods: disinfection with hot water and disinfection with a two percent solution of potassium permanganate.

Manganese solution

Eggplant seeds are disinfected for 20 minutes in a 2% solution of potassium permanganate. A solution with such a concentration of potassium permanganate is black, since for its preparation it will be necessary to take 2 g of potassium permanganate crystals per 100 ml of water.

In addition, a weaker solution will not give the desired effect. Eggplant seeds after bathing in the solution will also turn black. After disinfection, the seeds are washed, dried and proceed to sowing.

Hot water

When disinfecting with a solution of potassium permanganate, only those pathogens that are on the seed coat die. If the seed is affected inside, potassium permanganate will not work. Therefore, a more reliable method of disinfection is the heat treatment of eggplant seeds.

In domestic conditions, such heat treatment can only be carried out using hot water. With severe heat treatment, seed germination decreases and it is indicated only for seeds in which the loss of germination occurs more slowly than the destruction of the infection. These seeds include eggplant.

It should be borne in mind that during disinfection with hot water, weak, infected eggplant seeds will probably die. But why are they needed, you ask. Healthy and viable seeds will survive the procedure.

Eggplant seeds are placed in a bag and immersed in a thermos with water, the temperature of which is 50-52°C. For eggplant seeds, the holding time in a thermos is 25 minutes. Immediately after the time is up, the seeds are removed and placed in cold water.

Failure to comply with the conditions in one direction or another will lead to the death of eggplant seeds either from temperature or from a surviving infection. But subject to the conditions, this method gives a 100% guarantee that you have only healthy and safe eggplant seeds in terms of infections.

 After the preparation, you can start sowing seeds and waiting for eggplant sprouts.

Eggplant seeds do not germinate

Eggplant seeds usually germinate on the 5-10th day after sowing. They don’t have to wait before.

If all the deadlines have passed, and eggplant sprouts have not appeared, then there may be several reasons for this:

• too low soil temperature. Usually eggplant seeds are germinated at t = 25°C. The minimum temperature is 21°. At lower temperatures, the seeds will not germinate;
• “marshy” soil. With excessive soil moisture, eggplant seeds do not receive oxygen and “suffocate”;
• too deep sowing. This can even happen by accident if the soil is irrigated after the seed has been sown, and not before;
• Eggplant seeds processed by the manufacturer were sown. Encrusted and coated seeds germinate later than usual.

The eggplant seeds have sprouted, and other worries await the gardener. Seedlings can get sick. Diseases of eggplant seedlings can be divided into infectious, capable of infecting neighboring plants, and non-infectious, caused by external, relatively easily eliminated factors.

Non-infectious diseases of eggplant

Usually caused by excess or lack of moisture, light or minerals.

Eggplant seedlings stopped growing

There can be two reasons:

• plants stopped growing after picking. Eggplants do not tolerate transplanting very well, so they can stop growing after transplanting them into personal pots. It is best to immediately sow eggplant seeds in separate containers. If you had to pick, you need to water the transplanted eggplant seedlings with a root system growth stimulator;
• lack of space. Stopping growth can also occur in eggplant seedlings in separate pots. It is most likely that the sprout does not have enough space. You can verify this by pulling one plant out of the container and carefully examining the roots. If the roots are brown, then the reason is in a cramped pot. It is necessary to transplant eggplant seedlings into larger containers (+ 2-3 cm) by transshipment, adding soil.

Both problems, although unpleasant, are not dangerous to the plant.

Eggplant seedlings wither

You should not worry if eggplant seedlings lower their leaves, standing in the sun during the day (no, not to the state in the photo), and completely recover overnight, then this is a normal reaction of plants to heat. Problems begin when eggplant seedlings do not recover overnight with watering and normal weather. There can be several reasons why eggplant seedlings wither.

Bogging and acidification of the soil

Occurs when watering is too abundant, the soil acquires a musty smell. Eggplant seedlings need to be transferred to larger containers, adding soil, and watered more often, but little by little.

“Cold Feet”

Too much difference in temperature between the above-ground part of the eggplant seedlings and its root system. This happens when the seedlings are on the windowsill, and cold air blows from the window cracks from the street, cooling the pots. The ground part, under hot sunlight falling through the glass, actively evaporates moisture. The cooled root system does not keep up with them. As a result, an imbalance occurs and eggplants wither.

You can solve the issue either by raising the pots above the windowsill by 20 centimeters and thus equalizing the temperatures, or by sealing the window cracks with high quality.

Seedling roots suffocated

Eggplant seedlings can wilt if they are planted in too dense soil, the drainage holes are clogged or missing, there is too much water, or if the eggplants are planted too close together. The latter concerns the total capacity for seedlings.

To eliminate it, it is enough to loosen the top layer of the soil, break through, clean or expand the drainage holes and reduce the amount of water for irrigation.

Hypothermia of eggplant seedlings

From the cold, seedlings wither to the state of “rag”. This can happen when eggplant seedlings are taken out into fresh air before planting in a permanent place. The consequences are eliminated by watering the plants with warm water at a temperature of 30 °.

The lower leaves of the eggplant have begun to turn yellow.

In animals, this situation would be called beriberi. Eggplant seedlings do not have enough nutrients in the soil and for further development, it begins to suck them out of the lower leaves. Usually a similar situation occurs when growing eggplant seedlings in peat. Eliminating the situation is quite simple: eggplants need to be fed with complex fertilizer.

The lower leaves turn yellow and with a lack of nitrogen. This is also eliminated by fertilizers. Seedling leaves may turn yellow with some infectious diseases or pest attacks. Pests are relatively easy to notice, but before starting to treat eggplant seedlings for an infectious disease, it is better to first add fertilizer and see if the situation improves.

Light spots on the leaves of eggplant seedlings

When such spots appear, you must first make sure that there are no pests. If no one is found, then these are sunburns or a lamp under which eggplant seedlings are placed.

Eliminating the cause is quite simple: move the lamp away, and shade eggplant seedlings from the sun with a newspaper or tulle.

 The edges of eggplant leaves turn yellow and dry

This situation occurs when there is a lack of potassium in the soil. The problem is solved by adding potassium fertilizer to the soil. True, if recently the seedlings have already been fed, then a similar phenomenon is possible due to an excess of fertilizer.

Infectious diseases of eggplant seedlings

Root collar rot

In the first place among seedling diseases is the so-called “black leg”, another name for which is “root collar rot”.

This is a bacterial disease, the main cause of which is the high humidity of the earthen coma. With a black leg, a constriction appears on the stem, separating the roots from the upper part. By this time, the roots and the underground part of the plant already have time to rot.

If seedlings are infected with root collar rot, diseased plants are destroyed. If the seedlings grew in a common container, the entire crop will have to be destroyed.

The most reliable method of preventing blackleg is to calcinate the soil before sowing the seeds.

Eggplant black spot

Affects eggplant at any stage of vegetation. The pathogen persists in plant debris and seeds. For this reason, for subsequent sowing, seeds should be taken only from healthy plants and do not forget to pickle the seed before planting.

On seedlings, the disease will look like the appearance on the leaves of many small black dots with a yellow border. As with any other similar infection, control measures are to prevent the disease. It is no longer possible to cure the plant. It is necessary to destroy diseased sprouts and change the ground if the seedlings grow in a common container.

Mosaic of eggplant seedlings

Leaf mosaic can be caused by three different viruses: tobacco mosaic virus, cucumber mosaic virus, and mottled mosaic virus.

In all three cases, yellow spots appear on the leaves, which gave the viruses the name “mosaic”. The leaves look variegated, as if folded from pieces of a mosaic. The virus is transmitted through the soil, where it persists due to the presence of plant debris and insect pests: aphids, mites, sciarid larvae.

There is no cure. Prevention measures include the destruction of crop residues and pest control.

Invasive diseases of eggplant

In other words, pests. Seedlings growing indoors are unlikely to be dangerous to pests such as the Colorado potato beetle or locust, but there are those who are able to penetrate even into a city apartment. And sometimes they are brought in with non-disinfected soil.

Nematodes

Nematodes are very small round worms that are practically invisible to the naked eye. They are only 1 mm long. There may be three types of nematodes on seedlings. All of them penetrate the plant through contaminated soil, which explains the requirement to ignite the soil before planting seeds in it. Nematodes do not tolerate high temperatures very well. At a temperature of 40 degrees, they die. But comfortable for their life is the interval of 18-24 ° C.

Nematode eggs can be stored in seeds. During thermal disinfection, they die.

leaf nematode, in addition to the harm caused by itself, it also carries viruses, including those that infect plants of the nightshade family. Signs of its presence: leaves with randomly scattered dry spots.

The stem nematode affects not only stems, but also buds, leaves, flowers. The toxins released by it clog the channels, causing thickening of the tissues. The plant stops growing and eventually dies. The stem nematode enters the plant through the roots.

Gall or root nematode parasitic on plant roots. In the affected areas, swellings are formed, which are initially yellow, and then brown, in color. Due to thickening, the roots cannot function normally and the plant ceases to receive nutrients.

Of all the above, the gall nematode is the most dangerous, since it can spread not only through the soil, but also through pots, inventory, and even through drops of water flowing from a diseased plant.

Unfortunately, the only really effective means of combating nematodes is the complete destruction of diseased plants. Contact poisons do not give much effect. And if the nematode gets into the soil in the garden, it will be impossible to remove it from there.

whitefly

This insect, in its adult state, looks like a very small white butterfly up to 1,5 mm in size. The whitefly is able to breed very quickly, while being active all year round. The eggs are laid on the underside of the leaves, protected from the sun. It feeds on the juices of plants, because of this insect, the leaves begin to discolor and lose their shape. In the end, the leaves fall along with the buds.

Signs of the appearance of the whitefly on seedlings are a black coating on the lower leaves, which occurs due to the fact that a sooty fungus settles on the sugary feces of the whitefly. In addition, if you touch a seedling leaf with your hand, a flock of these insects will rise from under it. The whitefly is very mobile. If there are plants in the next room, she can move there too.

Folk remedies against whiteflies are effective with a small number of plants in the house. In the case of growing seedlings, it is easier to use insecticides, which will also have to be used more than once.

aphid

Aphid queens have wings, so they can easily fly even into an apartment and lay their eggs on seedlings. Aphids feed on plant sap. Just as in the case of the whitefly, a sooty fungus settles on aphid feces. The tops of plants and leaves curl up, later turning yellow, signaling the appearance of aphids. Aphids are capable of carrying viral diseases.

The most effective means of controlling aphids is an insecticide.

spider mite

It also feeds on plant sap. If a cobweb appeared on the seedlings, it means that the seedlings are affected by a tick. A favorable condition for the development of the tick is dry air. It is enough to monitor the humidity of the air, if necessary, spraying water from a spray bottle over the seedlings so that the tick never appears.

If the tick does appear, you will have to use insecticides, carefully treating all plants. Processing will need to be carried out several times at intervals of one week until it becomes absolutely clear that the tick has been destroyed.

Sciarides

Another name is “mushroom mosquitoes”. Black and gray midges breeding in an organic rich environment. The flies themselves are not dangerous, their larvae are dangerous, which can damage the roots of seedlings. Any insecticide is suitable against sciarids, up to Dichlorvos.

Features of growing eggplant, seedlings, diseases and pests

If you managed to successfully grow eggplant seedlings until they are planted in the ground, then new unforgettable adventures await you. Regardless of whether you are planting eggplants in a greenhouse or on beds under the open sky.