Impacts of Different Mulching Material on Seedling Emergence and Growth Performance of Hot Pepper (Capsicum Annum L) at Gurage Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was conducted in Gurage Zone at Wolkite University in 2016/17 cropping season. The field experiment was carried out in randomized complete block design (RCBD) using three replications and four treatments. The effect of different mulching material such as grass, banana, plastic and control mulch on growth parameters (plant height, germination rate, leaf number of branch per plant,) of hot pepper was conducted for three months. Data was collected and compared by using LSD at significant level of 0.05.The result showed that the highest and lowest plant height was obtained for grass mulch (T1) and control (T4) on the other hand no plant height was registered for plastic mulch. Generally, from the result of this study we recommended that farmers use of grass mulch increase the rate of hot pepper seedling and growth performance by maintain soil temperature, soil moisture and provide good air circulation with in soil spores than other mulching materials. The awareness of farmers should be increased by providing adequate training regarding with the type of appropriate mulching material, So, they can produce proper operation during the growth of paper to avoid the infestation of weed by mulching. According to analysis of variance there was significant different among treatments on the number of braches per plant and also results of the analysis of variance indicated that different mulching material were shown significantly (p>0.05) effect on plant height of pepper. However, there is no significant variation among the treatment for number of leaves. Since the recommended using vativar grass mulch until another investigation was done. This is a short term strategy; therefore, the study should be repeated over year. In order to address the significance of all the studied characters and to recommend the appropriate mulching material for further hot pepper production.