Abstract
We investigated the effects of methods to train lateral branches on the growth and yield of parthenocarpic eggplant ‘Shota’ to increase profitability on forcing culture. Three different lateral branch training methods based on maintaining a different number of leaves per flower (fruit) were examined. The growth rate of primary scaffold branches was faster when two leaves were left above each flower as compared with those when one or no leaf was left. Total numbers of marketable fruits and total fruit yields on leaving two or one leaf were larger than when leaving no leaf, and the values from April to June were the largest when two leaves were left for each flower. It was also shown that the total fruit yield on leaving two leaves above each flower in ‘Shota’ was larger than the value on conventional lateral branch training in the non-parthenocarpic eggplant ‘Chikuyo’.
