Development of Sustainable and Economically Viable Greenhouse Production Technology for Capsicum in Plains

An investigation was carried out to develop the sustainable, cost effective and economically viable greenhouse technology for capsicum in plains which comprised of eight treatment modules consisting of four different locally available soil media, i.e., sand, coir peat, smoked paddy husk and saw dust in one fourth proportion. The common media was the soil in half proportion and compost in one fourth proportion of total media, two irrigation regimes, plant nutrients status, fertigation with water soluble as well as straight fertilizers, use of mulch and variety Indra has been tried with three replications in Randomized Block Design in the Naturally ventilated polyhouse at NARP, Ganeshkhind, Pune during 2003-04 and 2004-2005. The seedlings were transplanted during November 2003 to ensure the off season production. The findings revealed that the Module 7, i.e., Soil: compost: sand as substrate, 20 k Pa irrigation regime, basal dose of 50 kg/ha NPK with straight fertilizers + fertigation @ 150:150:150 kg/ha NPK with straight fertilizers, black polythene mulch and variety Indra recorded significantly maximum number of fruits per plant (88.66), average fruit weight (72.48g) and the fruit yield per plant (5.70 kg) was observed to be the best package for high yield and better quality.