Evaluation of Different Soilless Substrate on Growth and Yield of Capsicum (Capsicum annuum var. grossum)

The greenhouse experiment was carried out at the Department of Horticulture, ITM University, Gwalior (M.P) to assess the impact of different growing media, and varieties of capsicum in the soilless culture. The experiment was performed in a factorial completely randomized design consisting of three growing media viz. cocopeat (M1), vermicompost (M2), 1:1 mixture of cocopeat and vermicompost (M3) and three varieties Indrani, Mahabharath, and california wonder and replicated thrice. The results revealed that the all growth parameters expect numbers of branches were significantly (p<0.05) higher in M3. Among different varieties Indrani recorded the tallest plant height and numbers of leaves while, California wonder had greater number of branches on main stem, and leaf area than the remaining variety. However, the yield parameters viz. numbers of flowers/ plant, number of fruits/plant, locule number was higher in California wonder grown in substrate M3. In contrast the fruit length, fruit diameter, pericarp thickness, fruit weight, fruit weight/ plant were higher in mahabharath grown in substrate M3. Therefore, our Finding suggested that M3 and M1 should be used for soilless culture of capsicum in order to achieve greater growth and production characteristics respectively.