Pepper Value Chain

 

Land preparation

For pepper production, proper tillage is crucial for adequate soil management and optimal yields. Land preparation should involve enough tillage operations to make the soil suitable for seedling (or transplant) establishment and to provide the best soil structure for root growth and development. The extent to which the root systems of pepper plants develop is influenced by the soil profile. Root growth will be restricted if there is a hard pan, compacted layer or heavy clay zone. Peppers are considered to be moderately deep rooted and, under favourable conditions, roots will grow to a depth of 36 to 48 inches. But the majority of roots will be in the upper 12 to 24 inches of soil. Since root development is severely limited by compacted soil, proper land preparation should eliminate or significantly reduce soil compaction and hard pans. Tillage systems using the mouldboard (“bottom”) plough prepare the greatest soil volume conducive to vigorous root growth. This allows more extensive root systems to develop, which can more efficiently access nutrients and water in the soil. Disking after mouldboard ploughing tends to re-compact the soil and should be avoided. Compaction pans are present in many soils. They are formed principally by machinery and, when present, are normally located at or just below plough depths. Even though compaction pans may be only a few inches thick, their inhibitory effects on root growth can significantly reduce pepper yields. If a compaction pan exists just below or near mouldboard plough depth, this hard pan can be disrupted by subsoiling to a depth of 16 to 18 inches to allow the development of a more extensive root system. Subsoiling also helps increase water infiltration. If there is an abundance of plants or plant residues on the soil surface, mowing followed by disking is usually advised prior to mouldboard ploughing. Immediately prior to mulch installation or transplanting, do final soil preparation and/or bedding with a rotary tiller, bedding disc or a double disc hiller in combination with a bedding press or levelling board. This provides a crust less, weed free soil for the installation of plastic mulch or the establishment of transplants. Peppers are usually transplanted into plastic mulch on raised beds. A raised bed will warm up more quickly in the spring and therefore may enhance earlier growth. Since peppers do poorly in excessively wet soils, a raised bed improves drainage and helps prevent water logging in low areas or poorly drained soils. Raised beds are generally 3 to 8 inches high. Keep in mind, however, that peppers planted on raised beds may also require more irrigation during drought conditions. file:///C:/Users/TRW/Downloads/B1309%20(1).pdf

 

 

 

Climatic and Soil requirements

Climate is one of the most important factors when determining planting times. Production of a pepper crop depends on the length of a growing season with optimal temperatures. The plant itself stops growing at temperatures below 10° – 12°C, and at 6°C, the leaves can die and flower abortion will start. The same will happen when temperatures increase to over 35°C. A pepper crop requires very stable temperature ranges with minimums and maximums not being too far apart. Temperature variation might result in poor fruit quality or reduced yields. Optimum temperatures would be:

• Day time: 25 – 28°C
• Night time: 16 – 18°C

This would also be the ideal temperatures for growing under protection. Long periods of overcast weather can also result in poor fruit set and loss of a crop. Hot peppers can withstand higher temperatures than sweet peppers.

https://www.starkeayres.co.za/com_variety_docs/Sweet-&-Hot-Pepper-Production-Guideline-2014.pdf. Pepper thrives well in warm climate. It requires well drained silt or clay loam and favourable climatic condition. Avoid planting on water logged and alkaline soils. Pepper also grows well on highly nutritive soil with optimum soil moisture.

http://agriculturenigeria.com/farming-production/horticulture/pepper. Pepper is a tropical plant and cannot tolerate frost. It will not grow where the temperature drops below 12 °C. A moderate winter climate is essential. Pepper plants need about 2000 mm rain annually. In South Africa the rainfall must be supplemented by irrigation. The soil should have a good structure and water-holding capacity. Drainage must be good to prevent root rot. It requires a pH of 5.5 to 6.0 and a high humus content is advantageous. The red dolerite soils of KwaZulu-Natal and the red andesite soils of the Soutpansberg are best for growing pepper plants. http://www.nda.agric.za/docs/Infopaks/pepper.htm

 

Varieties

There are wide varieties of pepper all over the world but many of them are produced based on regions and environmental conditions. Varieties commonly produced in Nigeria include:

 

Bird peppers—Atawere (Capsicum frutescens)

This is a very hot variety of pepper; it is short in length.  Both ripe and unripe bird peppers are used for making pepper sauces. It is used while unripe, usually still green in colour for preparing pepper sauce for unpolished rice (locally known as ofada rice). The sauce is richly garnished with locust beans.

 

Cayenne pepper or red pepper—Sombo (Capsicum frutescens)   

This is a very long and thin variety. It is a bit mild as regards to its hotness.

 

Atarodo (Capsicum annum)

This is the most common pepper variety in the market. The smaller sized ones taste more hot than the bigger sized ones.

 

Tatase (Capsicum annum)

This pepper variety is usually very mild in taste and very red in colour. It could be added to food or sauce as a colouring agent to bring out a bright red colour and sometimes to reduce hotness. http://agriculturenigeria.com/farming-production/horticulture/pepper

 

Planting

The earliest period for seedling establishment would be when the soil and air temperatures at least meet the minimum requirements for plant growth. The latest seedling establishment period would be after allowance has been made for the growth and harvest periods to be completed before adverse conditions sets in

https://www.starkeayres.co.za/com_variety_docs/Sweet-&-Hot-Pepper-Production-Guideline-2014.pdf. Planting is usually by means of cuttings and cuttings are rooted in moist beds and transplanted into the land after a period of 9 months. One or two leaf cuttings are taken only from secondary runners during September. It requires a row spacing of 3 m x 2 m to produce a population stands of 1666 plants/ha

http://www.nda.agric.za/docs/Infopaks/pepper.htm. The soil used for raising nursery should be rich, well- drained and free of diseases and insect pest. Make seed beds with topsoil mixed with compost (30 x 45 x 8 cm) on nursery beds or trays. Leave an upper space of about 20cm for watering while using trays. Beds should be about 1meter long with an inter-row space of about 1m also. Water the beds about 14hours before sowing. Make drills of 5-10 cm apart across the bed and sow about 100 seeds per drill. Cover lightly. Thin the seedlings to 1 per 2.5cm of drill 15–20 days after sowing. Alternately holes can be made at 4 x 4 cm apart on the bed and 3–4 seeds dropped in each hole. The seedlings are later thinned to one per hole. Similarly, seeds can also be drilled or planted in specific spacing (4 cm x 4 cm) in the tray

http://agriculturenigeria.com/farming-production/horticulture/pepper

 

Management practices

Weed control

In pepper production certain factors may influence yields negatively. These factors could include insect infestations, and fungal or bacterial infections. Weeds also contribute as a yield restricting factor. Firstly, weeds compete directly with the crop for moisture and nutrients available in the soil. Weeds could also be a host for various pests and diseases. It is also known that some weeds have the ability to produce enzymes that reduce plant growth in some crops. Capsicums are very sensitive to weed competition, particularly12 to 48 days after transplant. Problems occurring during this stage could severely affect the yield. Therefore, it is crucially important to control weeds at this stage. The best and most effective way to control weeds would be material that allows sunlight to enter the structure and then converting the trapped solar energy to heat, thus providing increased temperatures for continued production. In advanced structures, humidity and even light can be controlled to ensure maximum crop yields.

 

Fertilizer

During the production of sweet and hot peppers, correct fertilization is the single most important factor that determines the success of a crop. With good management practices these crops could be produced under a wide range of different conditions, however some growing conditions are more favourable than others. In order to calculate the correct nutrient requirement, the following aspects need to be available and taken into consideration:

• Nutrient withdrawal figures
• Fertilizer used in the past on the specific area intended to be planted
• Soil type
• Soil analyses
• Soil Acidity (pH)
• Quality of irrigation water
• Micro elements

 

 

 

 

Fertilization guideline

The ideal soil analyses or soil status for sweet and hot pepper production should be:

• pH (H₂O): 5.6 – 6.8
• P: 30 – 60 mg/Kg (Bray1)
• K: 100 – 250 mg/Kg
• Ca: 300 – 2000 mg/Kg
• Mg: 120 – 300 mg/Kg
• Na: 10 – 50 mg/Kg

 

Irrigation

The supply of adequate water to the roots of a pepper plant is critical. Under- or over irrigation can have a devastating effect on the outcome of the crop. It is therefore very important to apply water at optimal times. More frequent light irrigations are needed on sandy soils. Higher applications with longer intervals will be needed on clay soils.

Too little water might lead to:

• Sub-optimum yields.
• Decrease in the photosynthetic rate.
• Plants developing stunted growth.
• No production of flowers.
• Low percentage fruit set.
• Slow fruit development.
• Small fruit sizes.
• Poor quality.
• Flower abortion.

Too much water might lead to:

• Not enough oxygen in the soil.
• Plants becoming wilted.
• Root diseases becoming prevalent.
• Stunted plant development.

When scheduling irrigation, the size of the root system at the time of irrigation needs to be taken into account. In general, the root system can be compared to the aerial growth of the plant. The roots spread into the soil at a similar rate to which the aerial growth develops. Most pepper roots occur in the top 500 – 600 mm of soil level, even at maturity. For this reason, irrigation should be monitored at this level with irrometers. Deep, thorough irrigations are preferable to light and regular watering intervals. Drip or flood irrigation is preferable to overhead irrigation, due to susceptibility to foliar diseases. The amounts of water used will vary depending on the climatic conditions. During the cooler months’ peppers require about 25mm per week and this might increase to 50mm under very hot, windy and dry conditions. For irrigation purposes, the growth of peppers can be divided into four growth stages.

Stage 1:

• Establishment Can last up to 2 weeks.
• Seedling establishment takes place and plants start to grow actively.
• Low amounts of water are used.
• After seedling establishment to just before first flower, it is highly recommended (although a fine line of management) to reduce water drastically. It will force the roots to grow aggressively deeper into the soil looking for moist. This will help the plants at fruit set stage to handle difficult and stress related periods better due to the increased roots.

Stage 2:

• Vegetative growth
• Development of first flowers and fruit.
• Double the amount of water is used compared to the previous stage.

Stage 3:

• Fruit set Growth is at its highest.
• Water usage at this stage is at its highest during the lifespan of the crop.

Stage 4:

• Ripening and harvesting.
• Very high loads carried on the plant.
• Water usage starts to decrease.

 

Pruning

Pepper plants grown in a greenhouse are normally trained to two stems and need good support from an overhead trellising system due to the brittleness of their stems. The first training of the stems is done one month after transplanting and will continue every other week, depending of the growth rate. This type of training system allows for better light penetration, but if more light is available, more stems per plant may be considered. A maximum of up to four stems are used. One fruit should set for every two leaves the plant produces and flowers are allowed to set after the lateral branches have produced four leaf axils after the fork. The first flower produced by the immature transplant should always be removed so as not to inhibit future growth. Scissors or finger tips can be used to remove the desired shoots. Smaller wounds will heal faster. A disinfectant should be used to prevent the spread of disease. If too many stems are allowed to develop, energy is used in developing the multiple growing tips and fruit production may be slowed. More stems will however result in more, smaller fruit, produced increasingly later in the season. Fewer stems will produce fewer, though larger, fruit, and the plant will take less space. More compact type peppers do not require pruning, as they are mainly grown in open field which would result in less vegetative growth and an increase in sunburn damage to the fruits. Topping the plants around 30 days before the first frost will give every fruit that has set an opportunity to mature, as the removal of the growing tips will direct all sugar produced by the plant to the fruit.

 

Harvesting and Marketing

Factors such as nutrients, climate, temperatures, management and logistics play an important role in the general holding ability of peppers. New generation peppers varieties have been developed, due to breeding efforts over a period of years, to possess better firmness, holding ability and shelf life. All this is useless information if a crop of peppers is not picked at the right stage, distances to the markets are not taken into consideration and the cold chain is broken (constant temperature range in which the crop is transported to its destiny). The farmer must always bear in mind that quality is profitability. The qualities that attention should be paid to include: pack-out, uniformity, fruit shape, ripening ability, firmness and flavour. The specific characteristic required will depend on the market requirements, as dictated by the packer, shipper, wholesaler, retailer and consumer. Sweet peppers are mainly marketed in the green stage. All Capsicum types will be green in this stage and only once fully matured will turn colour to its genetic background. There are various colours on the market available, but the main ones would be red, yellow and orange. In the green stage the pepper is not matured and shelf life is expected to be much longer. Shelf life in the coloured stage is highly vulnerable to the fruit being fully matured. The fruit size of a pepper rarely indicates the maturity stage as some varieties are genetically larger in size than others. As an indication of when peppers should be harvested in the green stage the firmness of the fruit plays an important role. Coloured peppers are normally harvested at colour break stage. This will give sufficient time to get the product to the desired market depending on the distance etc. Green Stage: The pepper fruit is still green and when picked at this stage, will most probably last up to a maximum of two weeks in cold storage. Internally and externally fruits are very hard and crispy. This is the main segment in which the product is marketed. Colour Breaker Stage: These are the stages just before the pepper turns to its full genetic colour. Internally the pepper has already started to colour. On the outside one could clearly see blotches of the green fruit starting to colour. In South Africa this is the most common stage to pick coloured peppers as some farms are far away from the national markets. Fruit colouring to the full ripe stage will happen during the transportation process, or if temperatures are low it will colour on the market. Colouring of the fruit will start around the side mostly exposed to the sun. Fruit at this stage should be stored at 16-21°C. Ripe to Full Ripe Stage: Worldwide this is the stage where consumers buy coloured peppers. This stage gives the best colour and taste. Potentially this is the stage where the highest sugar content could be expected. This is measured with a refractometer and is expressed as brix %. Fruit at this stage should be stored at 13- 18°C and 90 – 95% relative humidity. At this stage of ripening one can expect 6 % brix. Peppers are sensitive to cold and should not be stored below 13˚C.Peppers are sensitive to ethylene (ripening hormone) and should not be stored with fruit that produce ethylene, such as bananas, avocados, and kiwi fruit.

https://www.starkeayres.co.za/com_variety_docs/Sweet-&-Hot-Pepper-Production-Guideline-2014.pdf

 

Storage

Pepper can be dried and stored in sacks. Dried pepper has a longer shelf life than fresh pepper. Dried pepper can be further processed by grounding it into powdery form. This powdered pepper can be easily added to food, whether during or after cooking. Fresh pepper can also be stored in the house in a cool dry place for about a week.

 

Constraint

Abiotic constraints pertaining to the climate (drought, flooding, strong winds, extreme temperature and sunlight) and to the soil (moisture and nutrients content) may add up to biotic constraints and lead plants to stress and undergo anatomical and physiological disorders that reduce yield (Jackson, 1986). Unfavourable climate may pose a major constraint to high yield.

http://agriculturenigeria.com/farming-production/horticulture/pepper