This year ... I decided to pit three grafted aubergine plants against three plants grown in the conventional manner (from seed, on their own roots) to see which would 'win'.
This year I conducted a little experiment: I decided to pit three grafted aubergine plants against three plants grown in the conventional manner (from seed, on their own roots) to see which would 'win'.
Grafted aubergines have been used commercially for a while, but they're relatively new to the amateur veg grower. I don't really understand the science beyond my basic grasp of grafting, but a grafted aubergine is simply an aubergine plant grafted onto some sort of turbo rootstock, which makes it super strong and healthy. Sellers of grafted veg plants (including tomatoes, peppers, melons and aubergines) promise higher yields over a longer period than plants grown on their own roots. They claim the plants are healthier, more robust and resistant to pests and diseases, and (most importantly) much quicker to crop.
This is where they become exciting: aubergines are normally quite tricky to grow. They're best raised in a warm greenhouse, and if you sow seed later than March, you’re in danger of losing the crop. This is because they need a long season to flower and produce fruit, so if you sow them late, by the time they flower the season has started to change and it's just not warm or light enough for them to do well. They also need a good summer - low temperatures lead to flower drop, resulting in no crop at all. This is a particular problem for growers in the north, where spring takes longer to kick in and autumn is then only around the corner.
I've only grown aubergines once before, and that was in a greenhouse in Manchester in the hot summer of 2006. They did rather well. This time I'm in London and we’ve had pretty good weather, but I don’t have a greenhouse and my garden only gets sun for two hours a day.
My grafted plants 'won' the contest about four weeks ago, when I put my first homegrown aubergine of the year on a pizza and ate it in front of the non-grafted plants, which had only just come into flower. I've already harvested two aubergines, and another grafted plant has three fruits growing on it. Of the three seed-sown aubergine plants, only one has a flower. The season has already started to shift, so I doubt I'll see it bear fruit.
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