Brinjal/बैंगन

 

BRINJAL

Ø  Common name: Eggplant, Aubergine (French name), Baigan and Poor man’s cusp

Ø  Botanical name: Solanum melongena

Ø  Family: Solanaceae

Ø  Origin: Indo-Burma

Ø  Chromosome number: 2n=2x=24

Ø  It is a perennial plant but grown as an annual.

Ø  Day-neutral, often cross-pollinated or facultative cross-pollinated vegetable crop.

Ø  Main pollinators: bumble bees and honey bees.

Ø  Mimosa pudica plants should be planted in vicinity of brinjal to enhance the pollination.

Ø  Brinjal is probably a native of India.

Ø  Among the vegetables, brinjal has the widest distribution in India.

Ø  Brinjal has three mains botanical varieties under the species melongena;

ü  Round or egg-shaped cultivar: S melongena var esculentum

ü  Long slender type cultivar: S melongena var serpentinum

ü  Dwarf brinjal: S melongena var depressum.

Ø  Solanum ferox: yellow fruited type

Ø   

Ø  The flowers of brinjal are hermaphrodite and of 4 types depending upon the length of style;

(i)      long styled with big sized ovary (maximum fruit setting@70-86 %)

(ii)     medium-styled with medium sized ovary (fruit setting@12-55 %),

(iii)   pseudo-short styled with rudiment ovary, and                 

(iv)    true-short styled with very rudimentary ovary.

• Ø  Longe and medium styled flowers produces fruit, whereas pseudo-short and true-short styled flowers do not set any fruit.
• Ø  Heterostyly is common feature in multi-flower cymes except in bunchy type cultivars.
• Ø  Chance of cross pollination is more in long styled flower.
• Ø  Ancestor: Solanum sysimbrifolium.

Ø  Nutritional content of brinjal:

ü  Brinjal has Ayurvedic medicinal properties.

ü  The fruits of brinjal are excellent remedies for those suffering from lever troubles.

ü  White brinjal is good for diabetic patients.

ü  Brinjal is a good source of vitamins like A, B and C.

ü  The green leaves of brinjal are excellent source of vitamin C.

ü  Dark purple brinjal have more vitamin C than white skin.

ü  The bitter taste and off flavor are due to glycoalkaloids (Solasodine@20mg/100 g).

ü  For processing purpose, the fruit should have more dry matter content and a low level of phenols.

ü  The discoloration of brinjal fruits is attributed to high polyphenol-oxidase activity.

ü  Cu content and polyphenol oxidase activity are highest in purple color fruit and lowest in white fruit.

ü  Fe and catalase activity are highest in green fruited cultivars and lowest in white fruited cultivars.

ü  White fruited cultivars contained twice as much crude fiber as the purple and green fruited cultivars.

ü  The cultivars that are least susceptible to discoloration are considered suitable for processing.

ü  Anthocyanin pigment is present in brinjal.

ü  White brinjal is suited to diabetic’s patient.

ü  Dry fruit of brinjal contain goitrogenic principles.

ü  For processing purpose: high dry matter and low phenol content.

ü  Oblong fruited brinjal is rich source of water-soluble sugars while, long fruited brinjal contains huge amount of free reducing sugar, anthocyanin, phenols, solasodine, dry matter and proteins.

ü  Digestive or decolestrolizing principle is due to presence of PUFA (Poly unsaturated fatty acid) i.e., linoleic and linolenic acid which are present in flesh and seeds of the fruit (65.1%).

Ø  Discoloration of brinjal is due to polyphenol oxidase (PPO).

Ø  Presence of Magnesium (Mg⁺⁺) and potassium (K⁺) salts in fruits also impart decholestrolizing action.

Ø  Anthesis: 6-7.30 am in summer while 8-11.15 am in winter.

Ø  Flowers are pentamerous i.e., have five part of each calyx, corolla, androecium and gynoecium.

Ø  Solanum melongena is included in the prickly group classification.

Ø  Varieties:

Long Varieties	Round Varieties	Oval/Oblong Varieties
Pusa Purple Long, Pusa Purple Cluster, PH 4, Pusa Kranti, Pant Samrat, Kt-4, ARU-2C, Azad Kranti, K 202-9, Pusa Anupam, Hisar Pragati, Hisar Jamuni, Arka Nidhi, Arka Keshav, Punjab Barsati. Punjab Sadabahar, Baingan, Pusa Hybrid-5, Azad B-3, Arka Sheel and Arka Shirish.	Pusa Purple Round, Pant Rituraj, Punjab Bahar, Punjab Moti, S-1, Barahmasi, Hisar Shyamal, BR-112, PLR-1, Arka Kusumakar, T-3, Jamuni Gola, Pusa Hybrid-6, Pusa Upkar, DBSR-31, DBSR-44, Arona, DBR-8, Pant BR 129-5, Pant Baingan 91-1 and Pusa Ankur	Arka Navneet (F1), Pusa Anmol (F1), Pusa Uttam, Pusa Bindu, Dudhia, BH-1 (F1), BH-2 (F1) and Punjab Neelam etc

 

Ø  Phomopsis blight resistant varieties: Pusa Bhairav, Florida Market and Pusa Anupam

Ø  Bacterial wilt resistant variety: Pusa Purple Cluster and Annamalai

Ø  Pant Samrat is resistance against Phomopsis blight and Bacterial wilt.

Ø  Vaishali, a private sector hybrid is bicolor variety.

Ø  Annamalai is resistant against aphid.

Ø  Pusa Purple Long: Extra early maturing variety.

Ø  Pant Rituraj: suitable for both autumn and summer season.

Ø  Arka Shirish: extra-long green color fruit

Ø  Manjari Gota and Vaishali is a bicolor variety.

Ø  NDB-25 is a soft joint variety and easy to harvest.

Ø  Artica cultivar is suitable for both outdoor and greenhouse cultivation.

Ø  Shoot and fruit borer resistant cultivar: Pusa Purple Long and Arka Kusumkar.

Ø  Jassid resistant cultivars: Manjari Got and Vaishali.

Ø  Little leaf resistant varieties are Arka Sheel and Majarigota.

Ø  Hisar Jamuni: a cultivar suited for ratoon cropping.

Ø  Climate

ü  Being a warm season crop susceptible to severe frost.

ü  Deformation of fruits are due to low temperature during the cool season.

ü  A long and warm growing season is desirable for successful brinjal production.

ü  Cool nights and short summers are unsuited to satisfactory yield.

ü  A daily mean temperature of 13 to 21°C is most favorable for optimum growth and yield.

ü  The optimum soil temperature for brinjal seed germination is 25°C.

ü  Low temperature induces shorter styled flower and leads to ovary splitting.

ü   

Ø  Sowing Time

Area	Crop season	Sowing time
North India	Autumn Crop	June-July
	Spring-summer crop	November
	Rainy season crop	April
South India	All season	Round the year
Hills	The seeds are sown in March to April and seedlings are transplanted in May

 

Ø  Seed Rate:

ü  Pure line varieties@500-750 g/ha,

ü  Hybrids@250 g/ha.

ü  1 g seed of brinjal having about 250 seeds.

Ø  Orobanch (total root parasite) is a serious weed of solanaceous vegetable crops.

Ø  Mimosa pudica increases insect activity in brinjal field.

Ø  The yield varies from season to season, variety to variety and location to location.

Ø  However, in general 250 to 500 q/ha of healthy fruits of brinjal can be obtained.

Ø   

Ø  Yield increased by Cu and Zn application in Brinjal because Cu and Zn increases number of flowers and fruit weight respectively.

Ø  Parthenocarpy can be induced by application of 2,4-D@2 ppm.

Ø  Processing cultivar should have high dry matter and low level of phenolics.

Ø  Green brinjal has longest shelf-life (4 weeks).

Production Constraint

1.     Poor fruit set:

ü  Among the four flower types pseudo-short and true short styled flowers fail to set any fruit.

ü  Natural dropping of flowers and fruits is also a problem in brinjal. It varies from 30% in long styled flowers to 50% in medium styled flowers.

ü  The phenomenon of heterostyly cannot be changed as true short styled flowers are completely sterile. However, the foliar application of growth substances like 2, 4-D@2 ppm at flowering stage and NAA@60 ppm or PCPA@50 ppm at full bloom stage results in higher percentage of fruit set and early yield.

Ø  Pest and disease of brinjal crops

Diseases	Causal organism/vector		Remarks
Fungal disease
Damping off	Pythium aphanidermatum, Rhizoctonia sp., Fusarium sp., Phytophthora parasitica		It causes damage both at pre-and post- emergence of seedling
Phomopsis blight	Phomopsis vexans	Serious disease for seed production
Wilt	Verticillium dahlia, Fusarium solani, Sclerotium rolfsii			Resistant variety: Florida Market
Bacterial Disease
Bacterial wilt	Pseudomonas solanacearum		Serious disease in West Bengal and Odisha.
Mycoplasmal Disease: little leaf	Vector- leaf hopper (Cestius phycitis)		Thomas and Krishnaswami (1939) first reported in India
Viral diseases
Mosaic			Seed and Aphids
Nematode
Root knot nematode	Meloidogyne incognita		Resistant varieties: Pusa 120, Hisar Lalit, Nematax, Anahu, Atkisen, VNF-8
Insect pest
Shoot and fruit borer	Leucinodes orbonalis		Most important disease (70% loss)
Hadda beetle	Epilachna viginctioctopunctata
Jassids	Amrasca biguttula, Cestius phycitis
Aphids	Aphis gossypii