Island spices -Bush Pepper production at home
Black pepper-widely regarded as “King of Spices” or “Black Gold” is an important spice crops used in numerous food preparations. Though the crop is traditionally grown and harvested from vines that are grown on support trees, the production of pepper from pepper vines maintained as bushes in pots or in the fields in home gardens is a promising technology considering the ease of growing in smaller spaces, maintenance and beautification of home gardens. When the lateral shoots from vines are used to produce planting material, the resultant plants grow like a ‘Bush’. These bush plants produce numerous laterals throughout the year, bearing inflorescences. The bush pepper plants start flowering during the same year of planting. The bush pepper plants could be planted in garden pots (at least 12 inches diameter) filled with potting mixture. About 200 grams of well decomposed farmyard manure should be applied annually in addition to bimonthly application of 30 grams of neem cake or 15 grams of groundnut cake or 1 kg of leaf compost per pot. Potted plants are to be kept under partial shaded places. On an average, well maintained plants yield about one kg of green pepper per plant per year. Having 5 to 6 bush pepper potted plants or in the filed in every household would be sufficient to meet up the requirement by a family in a year. ICAR-CIARI, Port Blair produces and sells these kind of Bush Pepper plants for growing in home gardens, balcony gardens or in plantations.
Benefit:The weather prevail in the islands is highly favourable for growing Black Pepper. As every family uses black pepper almost on daily basis, if it could be grown in home gardens and domestically processed, the families could save a part of family income, get quality spices for consumption and the surplus production could be sold for generating income also.
Source : Contact person with Name, Designation e-mail and phone no:Dr. B. Augustine Jerard, Principal Scientist, augustinejerard.b@icar.gov.in, 9447064463