Use of different doses of Hidrogel for sweet pepper seedling production

Sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum) is a vegetable of great socioeconomic importance in Brazil. One of the main stages of the production system is the production of quality seedlingsand, for this, it is required a substrate with good water retention and porosity. The technique of adding hydrogel as soil conditioner aims to increase the capacity of water retention on substrates for seedlings. The objective of this study was the analysis of the sweet pepper seedlings development using four doses of hydrogel Hydroplan-EB added to the Bioterra substrate, using 0, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 g kg-1 of substrate. The test was conducted during March-April 2007, at a seedling nursery of Unoeste, Presidente Prudente, Sao Paulo State, Brazil. It was used sweet pepper variety Cascadura Ikeda. The measured variables were plant height, root length, leaf number, dry mass of aerial part and of roots. The use of hydrogel did not influence the root system of the seedling peppers. There was no effect of hydrogel in the shoot length, but the hidrogel doses affected the aerial part dry weight because when we increased the dose of the hydrogel was observed in response to developing leaves and not the height growth. This fact promoted a significant positive linear adjustment of the aerial part mass dry with increasing dose of hydrogel, providing a change of better quality.