Capsicum Vegetable Farming

Capsicum Vegetable Farming

Capsicum Vegetable Farming: The scientific name of the Capsicum is Capsicum Annuum. Growing Capsicum needs adequate irrigation facility. You must apply proper fertilizer at the right time. You can harvest Capsicum around 10 months after plantation.

Capsicum Vegetable Farming: Capsicum, also known as sweet pepper, bell pepper or Shimla Mirch is one of the popular Vegetables grown throughout India. It is rich in Vitamin A (8493 IU), Vitamin C (283 mg) and minerals like Calcium (13.4 mg), Magnesium (14.9 mg) Phosphorus (28.3 mg) Potassium, (263.7 mg) per 100 g fresh weight.

Advantages of protected cultivation: Colored Capsicums are in great demand in urban markets. The demand is mostly driven by hotel and catering industry. The traditionally grown green Capsicum, depending upon variety and season, usually yields 20-40 tons per hectare in about 4-5 months. In the greenhouse, the crop duration of green and colored Capsicums is about 7 -10 months and yields about 80-100 t per hectare. The advantages of protected cultivation are;
Production practices: Selection of Site: Selection of site for taking up of protected cultivation is a critical step and this has to be done with utmost care. Places having high rainfall and humidity are not suitable for its cultivation, since this encourages many foliar diseases.

Green house structures: The green house is designed depending on the prevailing local climatic conditions. A good number of different types of structures are built for protected cultivation. However, cost effective poly house and net house structures are most commonly used to grow Capsicum in our country.

Net house (Shade net house): Growing of Vegetables in net house is the cost effective method in many parts of southern states particularly in and around Bangalore. It is mainly due to easy availability of the granite pillars, which can give good strength to the structure and highly durable.
Poly house: Poly house gives better protection compared to net house due to total avoidance of rain Water entry into polyhouse; hence leaf diseases can be easily controlled. Yield is normally 15-20 per cent more in polyhouse compared to net house.

Cultural and Nursery practices: Selection of cultivars: Most of the Capsicum hybrids produce green fruits that mature to red, orange or yellow depending on the hybrid. The fruits should have characters such as uniform size and shape preferably four lobes, fruit weight of >150g, uniform coloring after attaining complete maturity, with a better shelf life of more than 5 days under ambient conditions.

Nursery raising: Good quality seeds are required for producing better seedlings. The seedlings are raised in pro-trays of 98 cells or cavities. About 16,000 to 20,000 seedlings are required to plant one acre for which 160-200 gm of seeds is required.
Land preparation: The land should be thoroughly ploughed and soil should be brought to fine tilth. Well decomposed organic manure at the rate of 20-25 kg per sq mtr is mixed with soil. One application is sufficient to grow three Capsicum crops successively.

Fumigation: The crop beds are drenched using 4 per cent formaldehyde (@4 L/ m2 of bed) and covered with black polyethylene mulch sheet. While treating with formalin, care should be taken to wear mask, gloves and apron. Four days after formalin treatment, the polyethylene cover is removed; the beds are raked repeatedly everyday to remove the trapped formalin fumes completely, prior to transplanting.

Fertilizer application: A basal fertilizer dose of 20:25:20 NPK is required per acre and is applied to the beds uniformly before transplanting in the form of 80 kg calcium ammonium nitrate, 125 kg super phosphate and 32 kg murate of Potash or 40 kg sulphate of Potash.
Application of neem cake and Microbial Bio-control Agents: Fifteen days before transplanting, neem cake has to be enriched with bio agents like Trichoderma harzianam and Pseudomonas lilacinous. Neem cake of about 200 Kg is powdered and slightly moistened. Trichoderma harzianam, Pseudomonas lilacinous and Paecilomyces chilmdosporia each of two kg are mixed thoroughly to the neem cake.

Laying of drip line: Place one 16mm inline drip lateral at the center of the bed having emitting points at every 30 cm interval with discharge rate of 2 ltr/hr or 4 ltr/hr. Run the drip system to check each emitting point for uniform discharge before covering the beds with polythene mulch.

Mulching and Spacing: Black polyethylene non-recycled mulch film of 30-100 micron thick, 1.2 m wide, is used to cover the planting beds. Holes of 5 cm diameter are made on the polyethylene film as per the recommended spacing (45cm x 30cm).
Transplanting: The planting beds are Watered to field capacity before transplanting. Seedlings of 30-35 days old are used for transplanting. Care should be taken to see that no damage is occurred to roots, while taking out the seedlings from individual cells of portray. Seedlings are transplanted into holes made in polyethylene mulch film at a depth of 5 cm.

Pruning: Capsicum Plants are pruned to retain four stems. The tip of the plant splits into two at 5th or 6th node and are left to grow. These two branches again split in to two giving rise to four branches. At every node the tip splits into two giving rise to one strong branch and one week branch.
Training: The main stem of plant is tied with four plastic twine to train along and tied to GI wire grid provided on the top of the Plants. This is practiced after four weeks of transplanting. The new branches and Plants are trained along the plastic twines.

Drip irrigation and Fertigation: Drip irrigation is given to provide 2-4 liters of Water per square meter per day depending on the season. Water soluble fertilizers are given through fertigation for entire crop growth period, starting from third week after transplanting. Fertigation is to be given twice a week as recommended in the table below.

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