Studies on the Pot-transplanting of Fruit Vegetables Part 2 The Size of the Pot with Refwrence to the Growth of the Top and the Root

In the first part of this series of work, the authors reported the beneficial effect of pot-transplanting on the growth of the eggplant after the setting on the field. Part 2, herein reported, presents the experimental results showing the comparative size of plants varying with the size of pots in nursery stages. For pot-transplanting individuals allowing for determination of the space for roots, polygonal wood-board pots with adjustable inside dimensions were used, one side of which was replaced by a glass plate facilitating the observation of the root growth appearing on its surface. Comparative diameters of the pots were 7 cm, 10cm and 13cm, respectively, with the common depth of 12 cm. The eggplant variety used was ”Kurume Naganasu”, which was seeded, germinated and preliminarily transplanted in the electically bottom-heated frame. Observation of the growth after the second transplanting ware made each week, and the resulting plants ready to set were grown in ordinary hexagonal wood-board pot, which were carefully dug out, and final measurements were taken, at the end of the experiment. The result of the experiment is summarized as below : (1) Growth of the plants in larger transplanting-pot was much greater than those raised in smaller pots, where as the latter were still less than the control not transplanted from pots. (2) Number of roots of plants raised in smaller pots surpassed the others, especially the control to the extent of almost twiee as many at the setting period, but these roots became over-aged, and no fresh root development was noted at the time of setting. From this respect, the eggplant ready to set seems to require to have the root circle not smaller than 13 cm in diameter, judging from the size of pot used. (3) The T-R ratio at the time of setting in the ordinarily raised plants was 5.4, while the over-age of pot-transplanted plants was 2.2.