REDUCED FERTIGATION OF SOILLESS GREENHOUSE PEPPERS IMPROVES FRUIT YIELD AND QUALITY

     In a fall to summer crop, soilless-greenhouse-grown pepper plants were irrigated with five irrigation schedules and given different volumes of nutrient solutions per irrigation event. Plants that received 74 mL per irrigation event, irrespective of irrigation frequency or nutrient concentration, had similar marketable fruit yields (9 kg∙m²). By contrast, in plants with 37 mL per event, fruit yields decreased from 9.1 to 3.7 kg∙m² when number of irrigation events decreased from 62 to 9. With half the concentration of nutrients and 74 mL per irrigation event at 12 and 16 events per day, plants yielded 9 kg∙m² of marketable fruit with half the total amount of fertilizer (297 and 396 g per plant, respectively) and water (214 and 282 L/plant, respectively) than those delivered with a complete nutrient solution. With these same irrigation schedules, disorders such as cracking and blossom-end rot were reduced. It was possible to identify fertigation practices which would lead to reduced fertilizer and water use in low-cost soilless media greenhouse-grown peppers.

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