Two field experiments were performed during the successive seasons of 2006 and 2007 at Talkha district, Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt to determine the effect of gypsum, phosphoreine and rock phosphate rates on growth, chemical composition, yield and quality of sweet pepper plants cv. California wonder.
The main results could be summarized that:
- Application of 4 ton/feddan of gypsum as soil amendments and 1 kg of phosphorein as transplants inoculation with 60 or 90 kg P2O5 of rock phosphate induced a significant effect on root, shoot , total dry weights, N, P and K contents of pepper plant foliage as well as N and P total uptake.
- Additions of gypsum at 4 ton/ feddan and phosphorein at 1 kg/ feddan with 60 or 90 kg P2O5 of rock phosphate showed a significant effect on maximizing average fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant, total yield per feddan, fruit flesh thickness, fruit dry weight and fruit TSS.
- Adding 4 ton/feddan of gypsum and 1 kg/feddan of phosphorein with 60 kg P2O5 of rock phosphate increased sweet pepper fruit yield by 56.22 % above control.
In general, this study demonstrated that it is possible to produce highest growth, yield and quality of pepper plants by applying rock phosphate as a cheap phosphorus source; it will be necessary to add gypsum at 4 ton/feddan and 1 kg/ feddan of phosphorein with 60 kg / P2O5 of rock phosphate.