Extension > Garden > Diagnose a problem > What's wrong with my plant? > Vegetable > Eggplant > Spots/blotches on fruit
Eggplant > Spots or rot on fruit
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Blossom End Rot
- The side or bottom of the eggplant turns tan and soft, then black and sunken
- Affects only fruit
- Secondary rot from fungi or bacteria may occur on affected fruit
- Fruit may look short or stumpy, not fully expanded
- Common when water levels vary from irrigation or drought followed by rain
- More information on Blossom End Rot
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Suncald
- Generally only a problem on fruit
- Occurs only on tissue exposed to the sun
- Fruit turns tan or white on exposed side, may dry out and appear wrinkled
- More information on Suncald
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Anthracnose
Colletotrichum coccodes
- Fruit spots are sunken and round
- Infections are visible only on ripe and over ripe eggplant
- Fruit spots are sunken and round
- Rings of small black dots can be seen inside fruit spots, eventually the entire spot turns black
- Fruit spots produce salmon pink spores with moisture
- No visible spots on leaves and stems
- More information on managing diseases in the home vegetable garden
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White Mold
Sclerotinia sclerotiorum
- Dark, firm water soaked lesion on stem
- Girdled stems die and turn bone white
- Inside dead stems are black mouse poop like sclerotia
- Fruit are soft and rotted
- Cottony white mycelia inside and outside infected stems when humidity is high
- Favored by cool humid conditions
- More information on managing diseases in the home vegetable garden
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Phomopsis Blight
Phomopsis vexans
- Stems develop dark sunken lesions just above the soil line
- Seedlings may collapse and die
- Leaves develop circular, gray to brown lesions with a light center
- Severely infected leaves become torn, yellow, wilt and drop
- Fruit develops pale, sunken, oval spots
- Concentric rings of tiny black dots can be seen in fruit infection
- More information on Phomopsis Blight
- More information on managing diseases in the home vegetable garden
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Phytophthora Blight
Phytophthora capsici and Phytophthora parasitica
- Entire plant wilts and turns brown
- Soft, dark, water soaked spots form on fruit
- Water soaked to tan bleached spots may form on leaves
- Fruit wither but remain attached and become coated in white fungal growth
- Dark sunken spots form on stems, all leaves beyond this spot wilt
- Disease spreads very rapidly in cool wet weather
- More information on Phytophthora Blight
- More information on managing diseases in the home vegetable garden
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Virus
Cucumber mosaic virus and others
- Leaves are mottled with yellow and light green patches
- Leaves are misshapen; unusually long and thin like a shoestring or curled and deformed
- Fruit have yellow blotches or brown rings
- Plants may be stunted
- More information on Virus
- More information on managing diseases in the home vegetable garden
