Topic: pollination aubergines and melons

[sunloving]

Hi All
So every year i grow aubergines (money maker and listada de granda) and melons (lidls special orange) in the greenhouse with the tomatoes and cucumbers and every year they dont seem to set any fruit until i begin to clear away the tomatoes (ie really late on in the season) the toms are polinated fine as the door is usually open.

so my question is is this normal in these fruits and therefore what do you do to increase pollination (when i try with the aubergines they never seem to have much pollen on them to move to other flowers?)

x sunloving

[pumkinlover]

cannot say why but i struggled to get aubergines to pollinate this year despite doing hand pollination. will be interested to hear your replies thanks for asking.
Anne x

[Vinlander]

I don't know about Moneymaker but I tried Listada dG for several years and found it very very late. I'd recommend Long Black if you really must have a big one - I find the smaller ones usually much more reliable.

[sunloving]

hi vinlander
so normally with yours you have good pollination without doing anything?

thing is they have plenty of flowers but nothing sets until late aug/sept.

[Vinlander]

Yeah, in a bad year (07, 08, 09) I got very few late flowers and even fewer later fruit, but in a good year all except the very first flowers are fertilised.

This year was middling but all the flowers produced fruit - though it was a late season and late crop and only one or two per plant got to a reasonable size.

I can only say that Listada D G was one of the latest I ever tried, and I always grow three or more varieties that are small-fruited.

I do this on a multi-eggbasket basis - to get more, more reliable, earlier and tastier but smaller fruit - not to get extra flowers with varying pollen - but maybe it's a good strategy by accident - ?

However I'm in London so the temperatures may be what I'm really benefiting from.

Cheers.

[garrett]

I haven't grown melons, but I have had aubergines. Although you have them in the greenhouse, I find that they pollinate much better when placed outside so the bees can get at them. Maybe you could grow a couple of extra plants next time and leave them outside next summer and see if there's a difference.

[sunloving]

Hi thats a good idea , i think that the smell maybe of tomato plants might mask the flowers?
I do have a new bed outside the gh  that i can give this a try.
Thanks for the suggestion
x sunloving

[saddad]

We've had much more success with aubergines since we went over to smaller/longer varieties. We get a good crop (carrier bags full) in a 8x6 here without any deliberate pollination...  :-X

[sunloving]

Hi Saddad, thats interesting , which of the varieties would you recomend ive often looked at your harvest pictures with envy  ;D

x sunloving

[Spudbash]

The melons I grew under cover this year only set fruit when I pollinated them by hand, around midday.

The aubergines, which were in the same place, set fruit without any help from me, but their flowers were open for a lot longer than the melon flowers.
 :)

[saddad]

Hi Sunloving... calliope and Brinjal long are the only ones that spring to mind... I'll ask OH she has more idea about which ones we sowed this year..  :)

[sunloving]

Thats great.
So next year different aubergine varieties and hand polinate melons and maybe plant closer to the door or outside.
Lots of good advice to try thanks very much
x sunloing