Growing Peppers In The Northwest In The Greenhouse And In The Wings

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

The main difficulties in growing peppers in our climatic zone are most likely associated with technology, quality of seed, selection of varieties.

At our farm in the Pskov region, we plant seeds of Dutch selection, which are processed using the Integrated Coating and Seed Technology technology, which includes pickling, special treatment with protective substances (used fungicides: tyram, benomyl, iprodion, metalaxyl; insecticides: dichlofenthion, mercaptodimetur). These seeds are covered with a protective film and tested for major diseases.

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The gardener should be aware that such harmful diseases as bacterial leaf spot, bacteriosis of fruits, gray rot, white rot and black spot are very often brought into the area with seed material. And at home, it is not always possible to sterilize seeds properly.

We sow mostly fairly early ripening hybrids, with a ripening period of 45 to 70 days (after transplantation), we select hybrids that are resistant to diseases, reliable and classical selection. Usually breeders develop hybrids for a specific cultivation technology, according to the market demand. In an amateur environment, it is quite difficult to follow the recommended growing regime for professionals.

In order to somehow get closer to professional recommendations, you need to understand: how much a particular parameter of the environment in our greenhouse is useful or harmful to the plant.

Let me remind you the basic parameters for pepper, many are familiar with them from various manuals and articles, but for some reason they forget that pepper is of "southern nationality". It is customary in our country to talk about the zoning of a particular variety, but I would not really trust this "brand" when zoning concerns southern cultures. In addition, they are "zoned" in professional vegetable farms, where environmental conditions are completely different than in our amateur greenhouses.

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, argued that "… the study of non-inherited modification variability is the second half of selection, since it is very important for the technologies of cultivating agricultural plants." (Vavilov N. I., 1934). From the point of view of modern concepts, we can say that in our amateur conditions those hybrids will be preferable, in which the set of corresponding hereditary traits (genes) better withstands stress factors, i.e. with their abrupt changes, the genetic apparatus continues to retain the useful qualities of the variety. These are hybrids with reliable selection for our "amateur" conditions.

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Optimum parameters of the environment for germination of pepper seeds: temperature 24-25 ° C, soil moisture 70-75%. In this case, seedlings appear on the 6-9th day, and at a temperature of 13-15 ° C - only on the 18-20th day. During the growing season, the air temperature is 24-28 ° C during the day, 20-22 ° C at night, and the soil temperature is 20 ° C. At soil temperatures below 15 ° C, plant growth slows down, and at 13 ° C it stops, the roots die off. High air temperature (35 ° C) - flowers fall off.

At low air temperatures (6 … 8 ° С at night and 11 … 15 ° С during the day), fruits are not set. The soil for growing needs light, fertile, rich in organic matter, well seasoned with mineral fertilizers. Before the beginning of fruit formation, pepper consumes more phosphorus fertilizers, and from the budding period - nitrogen fertilizers. The soil must constantly contain sufficient amounts of calcium and magnesium.

Two phases of plant development

Modern agricultural techniques that we use on the farm are based on the property of plants to be in two phases of development - generative and vegetative. The vegetable grower, acting on the plant with certain methods, regulates the predominance of one or another phase. “Peppers go through the vernalization stage, first in the seeds, and then in the seedling phase at a temperature of 20-25 ° C for 60 days.

The stage of vernalization ends in seedlings of 15-20 days of age (P. Ye. Fedin). Using modern terminology, we can say that during this period of life, the vegetative phase of development should prevail in the plant, the best in this phase are changeable temperatures: 25- 27 ° C during the day and 15-18 ° C at night. This temperature regime should be maintained until 60-65 days of growing seedlings.

This is important because, after passing the 60-day phase, when transplanting seedlings into the ground, even at a significantly lower temperature, the buds of the peppers do not fall off, and when higher temperatures come, their opening continues. This is especially important when transplanting into open ground. Thus, the seedlings of peppers in our conditions are prepared for 60-65 days. Optimal: March and April, disembarkation in May. You can start in February, but then always with backlight.

Planting - in May, under the film there is a large difference between day and night temperatures, which in our conditions causes a generative type of development in pepper and has a positive effect on strengthening the flowers. During this period, if the plant has a dark color at the end of the day, this indicates the correct temperature regime. Seedlings should not be buried when planting.

Modern Dutch pepper hybrids do not react sharply to the length of daylight hours, many of them set fruit well even in low light. By the phase of fruit formation, the pepper plant must have balanced both vegetative and generative development, then the formation of fruits will be regular. If the plant begins to dominate vegetative development, increase the difference between day and night temperatures, and vice versa. It should be noted that the preparation of plants for fruiting is needed.

In order for the fruits not to be too close to each other, it is important that in June, when we have white nights, the absolute night temperature is not very low, this will make it possible to develop longer internodes. After our white nights, pepper culture becomes "more vegetative"; in this case, it is recommended to raise lateral shoots up after the first leaf in July and create generative conditions (temperature difference). Flowering decreases slightly due to the development of fruits on the bush; but harvesting the fruits brings about a new wave of increased flowering.

If we touch on the cultivation of pepper seedlings with or without a pick, then it can be noted here that the dived seedlings develop into stronger plants with a well-developed root system, but it lags somewhat behind the unpicked at the beginning of budding. If you are making a dive, and Japanese vegetable growers, for example, advise growing with a dive, then follow the condition: the transplant into a pot must be done within 2-3 days after the appearance of a true leaf.

Preparing the soil for pepper seedlings

Before growing pepper seedlings, you need to find a good land for this occupation - loose, free from pathogens and with sufficient mineral nutrition; free of chlorine and with an acidity of pH 6.5. In our conditions of choice - this is "Garden earth", which is not bad to steam, + coconut briquette 1: 1 + a teaspoon for 2 liters of a mixture of good complex fertilizers + a tablespoon of chalk, or you can buy a Finnish ready-made garden mixture.

Pepper does not grow on acidic soil, seeds do not germinate. On some very fatty ready-made mixtures of domestic production, pepper seeds germinate poorly. (Good earthen mixtures, in small quantities, are prepared by the Botanical Garden). It is important to organize proper nutrition of pepper plants, seedlings take out several times more nutrients from the soil per unit of dry matter than an adult plant. But this does not mean that the plant needs to be covered with mineral dressings along the cotyledons.

On the contrary, the concentration of the seedling soil solution should be reduced. It is most convenient to correct nutrition by adding small doses of mineral fertilizers with irrigation water, but not making a "swamp" in the pot. The concentration of any salt should not exceed 0.5%, i.e. in 1 liter - 5 g of mineral salt. Fertilizers for peppers should be chlorine free. Even water for irrigation is recommended to be kept for two days and heated to 23-26 ° C.

Gardeners have a lot of experience in growing in "window-sill conditions", everyone knows if the leaves are pale - there is not enough nitrogen, if the stem is stretched out - phosphorus, if cloudy weather is delayed, then - potassium. For corrective dressings, it is convenient to use potassium nitrate and potassium monophosphate, but the concentration of the solution, I repeat, should not exceed 0.5%. How to fill greenhouse soil with fertilizers, a lot has already been written about this in articles about peppers, for example, you can follow the recommendations of one of the Japanese agricultural companies.

In principle, there is nothing supernatural in this technology. Japanese farmers recommend the use of sufficiently large doses of good humus and fractional row application of mineral fertilizers under the pepper, and at different depths and in different periods of the plant's growing season.

This does not contradict the recommendations of domestic agronomists: the use of humus can improve soil ventilation and accelerate root development, fractional fertilization can stimulate vegetative or generative development, the application of various salts at different depths to the soil has a positive effect on the root system. In Japan, peppers are grown using this method in the field; their climate is somewhat different from our forest-tundra. We grow this crop in greenhouses, but for the most part they try to import it from far abroad.

We also have separate farms where peppers are grown according to the Dutch technology on mineral wool instead of soil and using nutrient solutions recommended by "Bemestings Advies Basis" Naldwijga I. K. S. (Holland).