EVALUATION OF ELITE HOT PEPPER VARIETIES - IPMS ...

The testing locations represent major hot pepper producing areas of the study area having
typical tropical and sub-tropical climate. Hence, the varieties were expected to express their
full genetic potentials for the characters under consideration.
3.4 Data Collected
Data were collected from the middle nine plants from central rows excluding the border rows
and the rest of all response variables were recorded from the average of those nine selected
sample plants per plot at each location, as indicated below.
3.4.1 Growth characters
Plant height (cm): Plant height measurement was made from the soil surface to the top most
growth points of above ground plant part. The measurement was taken as the length from nine
plants of central rows of each plot at the last harvesting time.
Days to 50% flowering: Is the number of days where 50% of the selected plants started
blooming beginning from the days of transplanting.
Number of flowers per plant: The number of flowers of the nine sample plants at 100%
flowering stage from each plot were counted.
Days to first harvest: The number of days from transplanting to the date of first harvest was
recorded from nine sample plants selected from central rows.
Canopy diameter (cm): The mean values were taken at fruit maturity at both locations by
measuring diameter of the plant (North to South and East to West dimension of the above
ground part of sample plants).
Number of branches per stem: Numbers of primary, secondary and tertiary branches per
stem of randomly selected nine middle row plants at final harvest were counted.
Dry weight content per plant (g): Mean values of the dry weight content (shoots and roots).
The samples were dried in an oven at 105 o C until constant weight was reached.
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