ISHS Acta Horticulturae 450: International Symposium Growing Media and Plant Nutrition in Horticulture
EFFECT OF DIFFERENT N/K RATIOS IN NUTRIENT SOLUTIONS ON PEPPER OF GERNIKA |
| Authors: | H. Macía, A. Etxeandía, M. Domingo, R. Amenabar |
| Keywords: | pepper of Gernika, skin, soilless culture, ratios |
| Abstract:
Pepper of Gernika is a local cultivar which is harvested in early stage of development due to its tendency to make a strong "skin". This "skin" tends to appear stronger when environmental conditions are not appropriate (poor light conditions, high vapor pressure deficit in the air). The development of soilless culture technique was due to soil pathogens like Phytophthora sp., which has become a serious problem in the Basque region of Spain. This technique not only allows growing pepper in this infected greenhouse soil, but has made possible to increase largely the yields until 7.2 Kg.m-2 (from 2.4 Kg.m-2 to 3.6 Kg. m-2 in the same period of time). The introduction of improvements in greenhouses (like heating, irrigation computers, etc.), allows to arrive this kind of pepper in the market in early spring or late winter. On the other hand, early harvesting of this pepper has brought new problems relational to environmental conditions which affect quality of production and the control of the greenhouse climate and nutrient solutions. The unique nature of this cultivar makes that "standard" nutrient solutions employed for other cvs. are not suitable for this kind of pepper. In this trial four different N/K ratios in the nutrient solution have been tested with pepper of Gernika. This ratio may have a big influence in the development of the "skin" of the fruit and a high ratio N/K is recommended. On the other hand the ratio between K, Ca and Mg has been kept constant around 0,5 (0,44–0.66). As this pepper is harvested in early stages of development, it is not usual to find Ca deficiency that may also be common in other kind of peppers. The four ratios N/K employed were (4:1, 3:1, 2,3:1, 2:1). The results show no significative differences between the four treatments with Duncan's test. However, the ratio 3/1 has reached the best production (total and commercial) and is in agreement with other experiments. Differences can be increased whenever the climate conditions of the greenhouse get better. To test the influence of different nutrient solutions with different N/K ratios on “pepper of Gernika” in order to establish correlations with quality and quantity of production and greenhouse climate. | |
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