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Farmers’ Field trial on Chilli Shows Spectacular Yield Increase with Adequate Potassium Fertilization
 India is the largest producer and exporter of chilli in the world. The total production in the country is 828,000 tonnes of which only 2.5 to 3.0 percent is exported. Green chilli constitutes about one fifth of exported spices from India. Besides, oleoresin produced from chilli is also exported to other countries earning foreign exchange for the country. Among the states, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and West Bengal are major producers of chilli.
Chilli is a major crop in West Bengal, cultivated mainly in Murshidabad, South & North 24 Parganas, Nadia, Coochbehar, Jalpaiguri, East & West Midnapore districts and total area under cultivation is about 63 thousand hectares, producing 52 thousand tones of chilli. Productivity of dried chilli (about 35% of green fruit production) is highest in Birbhum (1,576 kg/ha), followed by North 24 Parganas (1,390 kg/ha), Nadia (1,395 kg/ha), Murshidabad (1,337 kg/ha), and Coochbehar (1,083 kg/ha).
Just like any other crop, chilli also requires proper nutrient management to improve yield and quality of products. It has a long growing season and apart from N and P2O5, potassium plays a vital role in growth and productivity of this crop. In addition to yield deterioration, potassium deficiency had negative effects on precocity and commercial quality of fruits, particularly the colour development. A survey of district-wise production data in the state shows that productivity of chilli varies between 312 kg/ha to 1,576 kg/ha. This is quite a wide variation between districts and soil test-based nutrient application is necessary to bring parity in productivity of various districts.
Seeing the need to improve farmers awareness on adequate and balanced NPK application, PPIC-India Programme conducted a farmer’s field trial in collaboration with Department of Horticulture of the Institute of Agriculture, West Bengal, in the sub-humid lateritic belt of Birbhum district to study the effect of different levels of potassium on yield of chilli cv. Phule Jyoti. The available N, P, K content of the soil was 97.2 kg/ha, 216 kg/ha and 130.8 kg, respectively. Treatments were designed keeping the soil test based N (100 kg/ha) and P (80 kg/ha) recommendation constant, while varying the levels of K from 70 to 150 kg/ha.
Treatment | Length of Fruit (cm) | Weight of fruit (gm) | Number of seeds per fruit | Green fruit yield (t/ha) |
N100P80K150 | 5.3 | 1.6 | 47.9 | 9.8 |
N100P80K130 | 5.2 | 1.5 | 41.7 | 7.3 |
N100P80K110 | 4.7 | 1.5 | 36.6 | 5.4 |
N100P80K90 | 4.8 | 1.4 | 33.0 | 4.5 |
N100P80K70 | 4.2 | 1.2 | 28.3 | 3.8 |
 Experimental data clearly shows significant improvement in yield and yield attributes of chilli with increased potassium application. The weight of single fruit increased with increasing levels of K2O and the length of fruit also followed the similar trend. There was significant variation in number of seeds per fruit due to various levels of K2O and seed numbers were highest with 150 kg K2O/ha. The green fruit yield per hectare increased in a dose dependant manner producing maximum yield of 9.8 tonnes of green fruit at 150 kg K2O/ha. There was a 2.5 fold increase in yield with highest level of K2O (150 kg/ha) as compared to the lowest dose (70 kg K2O /ha) used in this experiment. Results of the present trial shows that adequate potassium application, along with soil test based N (100 kg/ha) and P2O5 (80 kg/ha) application, have a definite role on improving growth and productivity of chilli and a dose of 150 kg K2O/ha appears to be optimum in chilli cv. Phule Jyoti for obtaining higher yield in the present soil and agro-ecological condition.
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