Effects of Fruit Maturity Stages and Seed Extraction Time on the Seed Quality of Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.).

Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is a vegetable from Solanaceae family and its fruit is used in human consumption. It is produced from seedlings in the Republic of Serbia and quantity of seed used for seedlings depends on germination and 1000 seed mass, and ranges from 250 to 350 g ha-1. The aim of this paper was to determine effect of fruit maturity stages and storage duration of harvested fruit on eggplant seed quality. Seed was extracted from technologically mature, semi-mature and botanically mature fruit. Germination energy, germination and 1000 seed mass were tested after seed extraction. Part of harvested fruit was stored for 10 and 20 days, after which seed was extracted and the same seed qualities were tested. It was determined that seed from technologically mature fruit had germination around 25%. In semi - mature fruit, germination abruptly increased from 2% (seed extracted after harvest) to 88% (seed extracted 20 days after harvest). Seed obtained from botanically mature fruit had maximum germination after storing for 20 days after harvest and amounted to 99%. In all tested variants, 1000 seed mass increased with storage life, and it reached 5.48 g in botanically mature fruit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]