Growth, Yield and Fruit Quality of Sweet Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) in Relation to Organic and Bio-Fertilizers Application

Oganic and bio-fertilizers could be used not only to diminish the vegetable crops requirements from chemical fertilizers but also to avoid its unfavorable effect to the environment. The current study was carried out during seasons of 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 at the Experimental and Production Station of National Research Centre, El-Noubaria region, Behera Governorate, Egypt to investigate the response of sweet pepper plants cv. California Wonder to poultry or cattle manure as a nitrogen organic source at rate of 90 unit N/fed. alone or combined with Microbein or Nitrobein as bio-fertilizer applied as seedlings root dipping method. The experiment was laid out in a split-plot design with three replicates under open field conditions. The obtained results proved that applying poultry manure gave superiority of vegetative growth, total yield and its components as well as nutritional values of sweet pepper fruits than cattle manure. Poultry manure significantly enhanced most of all measured parameters in both seasons of study. Although, poultry manure caused an increase in heavy metals Pb and Ni as well as NO3 in fruit tissues during both seasons, nevertheless such increase did not exceed the permissible limits. On the other hand, cattle manure recorded the higher values of unmarketable pods yield in the first season, P, Zn and Cu in the second season and K in both seasons. The highest values of vegetative growth parameters, total pods yield and its components were recorded with using Microbein followed by Nitrobein and then control treatment. Except of unmarketable pod yield whereas, control treatment recorded the highest value in the first season. Bio-fertilizers caused enhancement in nutritional values of pepper pods compared to control treatment. The best values of nutritional pod parameters were fluctuated between Microbein and Nitrobein. No significant differences were detected between both bio-fertilizers, significant differences were detected only between them and control treatment in both seasons. The interaction had no significant effect on most parameters. Generally, it could be stated that, pepper plants treated by Microbein and fertilized with poultry or cattle manure resulted in vigorous plants, superior fruit yield and the best chemical constituents of pepper fruits.