Productivity of pepper crop (Capsicum annuum L.) as affected by organic fertilizer, soil solarization, and endomycorrhizae

Abstract

Two protected experiments were designed to study the effect of organic fertilizer, soil solarization, and endomycorrhizae on yield and fruit quality of sweet pepper. A split–split plot design was used with four replicates for each treatment. The organic fertilizer treatments were randomly distributed among the main plots, soil solarization treatments arranged among the sub plots, while mycorrhizal treatments were allocated as sub–sub plots.The combined interaction of organic fertilizer, soil solarization, and endomycorrhizae gave the highest increase roots infection percentages when compared to other treatments, being 78% and 87% in the first and second seasons in respective order. Organic fertilizer, soil solarization and mycorrhizal inoculation, either separately or in different interactions resulted in significant increases in pepper’s early yield, total yield, total number of fruits per plot, and fruit length and diameter. The combined interaction between organic fertilizer, soil solarization, and VAM gave the highest significant increase in early and total yields (kg/plot) and total number of fruits/plot being 9.251 and 75.645kg/plot and 529.3fruits/plot, respectively.