Growing Green Pepper 101

1. The choice of seeds... very important. Tycoon F1 from Monsanto, Maxbell, Admiral F1 from Syngenta, and California Wonder varieties exist commonly. 0ne acre can accommodate 11000 seedlings well. A hectare can accommodate 23000 seedlings. 1 seedling can give you up to 3kgs entire life 2. Get seed trays get the ones that hold 100 seedlings per tray. Hygromix or cocopeat may be used to enable seedlings to move with some soil at transplanting Hygromixis better than cocopeat because it has already balanced nutrients for germination. Coco peat is cheaper, but, you must learn to treat it, and fix nutrients To use fill hygromix up to half the hole, put the seed then cover very lightly with some hygromix. 3. Make the nursery with fine tilled soil. The nursery bed should be 50 cm by 10 m, depending on how many seedlings you plant. Make the top soil very fine. Draw lines across the bed 10 cm apart, and plant EACH SEED 3cm apart at a depth of a few a few mm. cover loosely with soil. Then cover the bed finally with dry grass. Finally you can water twice per day for 4 days till germination. DONT USE MANURE, DONT USE ANY FERTILISER AT THIS STAGE. The goal is to achieve at least 98%germination. 4. Green pepper generally takes 45 days in nursery. 5. Hardening off is done at day 30 to day 45 6. Transplanting; Make 1m wide beds, with 0.5m walking space between the beds. Along the beds, make planting holes 40 cm apart on both sides of the bed. Planting holes should be about 25cm deep. Mix soil inside each planting hole with 7 grams DAP fertilizer (7gms is about one soda bottle top). Apply water (drip irrigation is advantageous) one day to transplanting.

Top dress with NPK at transplanting, 7gms per plant. One week later we may need to spray with a high Nitrogen foliar like DI grow green, or Agroleaf high foliar, or even Osho starter. Water daily, you may mulch and provide 0.5L of water per plant daily, or if not mulched you may provide 1 litre per plant daily After 1 month top dress again with Sulphate of ammonia Apply 7 grams per plant. 7. A month after transplant spray DI grow red type to facilitate vigorous flowering. 8. Weekly application of the following chemicals; Ridomil (Systemic fungicide) mixed together with Dursban. Dursban has been banned because of its effects on women and children. Use 40gms of ridomil and 20mls of dursban per 20 litre knapsack. Avoid spraying pesticides during floweringas this may kill bees and other insects that assist in pollination. Then apply a high Phosphate foliar feed. After transplanting green pepper takes about 55 days to harvest. You may harvest once in ten days for up to a year depending on your management.