Effect of Different Media on Germination and Seedlings Performance of Chili Pepper (Capsicum annum)

Abstract

The production of vegetable seedlings is an important business for some farmers in most parts of the world with poor media being a major constraint. An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of different media on germination and nursery performance of chili pepper at the Department of Horticulture, Kwame Nkrumah University of science and Technology (KNUST). A Randomized Complete Block design with six treatments and three replications was used in the study. Media treatments were used either alone or in combination and they were: topsoil only, rice hull ash only, rabbit waste only, topsoil and rice hull ash (1:1), topsoil and rabbit waste (1:1) and topsoil and river sand (1:1). There were significant differences in germination percentage, seedling height, number of leaves and stem girth as function of the media treatments. The different media however did not affect days to 50% germination significantly. Comparatively, the highest and the lowest germination percentages (77.50% and 62.00%) were obtained by nursing seeds in the mixture of topsoil and rice hull ash as well as rabbit waste only respectively. In terms of growth characteristics, plant height and number of leaves were highest in seedlings nursed in topsoil and rice hull ash mixture (18.36 cm and 13.23 cm) respectively at the end of the study period. The highest stem girth was seedlings nursed in topsoil (3.129 mm) at the end of the experiment. Plants nursed in rabbit waste only had the lowest growth performance in terms of plant height (2.75 cm), number of leaves (4.50) and stem girth (1.27 mm) at the end of the experiment. Growth medium consisting of a mixture of proportion of topsoil and rice hull ash is therefore recommended for growing chili pepper seedlings since this combination improved both germination and subsequent growth as compared to the other media used in the experiment. Rice hull ash is not recommended to be used alone in raising chili pepper seedlings since it has a high pH which decreases seedling growth. Partially decomposed rabbit waste is also not suitable to be used as nursery medium because it retards seedling growth.