Yield and quality of habanero chili in response to driving pruning and nutritional regime

Abstract

Habanero chili is traditionally produced in soil and in the open sky, so that information on its hydroponic cultivation in greenhouse conditions is scarce, especially with regard to plant management and nutrition. For this reason, in a greenhouse of the experimental field of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the Autonomous University of the State of Morelos, an experiment was carried out in the hydroponic system in order to evaluate the growth, yield and quality of fruits of the habanero chilli in response to conduction pruning (2, 3, 4 stems per plant and without pruning) and the nutritional regime [RN1: universal nutrient solution (Steiner, 1984) supplied throughout the crop cycle; RN2: specific nutrient solution for each phenological stage of habanero chilli (López-Gómez et al., 2017)]. There were eight treatments, each with four repetitions, distributed in experimental design completely random. The experimental unit was three plants, each placed in a black polyethylene container with a capacity for 15.14 L, with red tezontle gravel as a substrate. The nutritional solutions were supplied with the drip irrigation system. The results indicated that the treatment ‘without pruning-RN2’ increased 29.5% and 35.5% dry biomass and number of fruits respectively, compared to the treatment plants ‘without pruning-RN1’. The yield was 616.9 g plant in six fruit cuts with the treatment ‘without pruning-RN2’, 22.8% higher than the one obtained from the treatment ‘4 stems-RN2’. By effect of the pruning of conduction (2, 3 and 4 stems) the size of the fruits was increased.