Effects of Phenylphthalamic Acid and Perfect Fertilizer on Vegetative and Reproductive Growth of Ornamental Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.)

The impact of phenylphthalamic acid (PPA) rates including 0 (PPA0), 1000 (PPA1000), 2000 (PPA2000) or 3000 (PPA3000) mg L-1 and perfect fertilizer rates including 0 (PF0), 100 (PF100), 200 (PF200) and 300 (PF300) mg L-1 was studied on vegetative and reproductive growth of ornamental pepper plants. To realize this, a factorial experiment was conducted in a Completely Randomized Design with three replications. It was found that the interaction between ‘PPA × PF’ improved the measured traits; so that the shortest time to flower initiation (55.40 day), the shortest time to fruit set (62.93 day) and the highest fruit number (98.12 fruit) were related to the application of ‘PPA2000 × PF200’. Plants treated with ‘PPA2000 × PF300’ exhibited the most number of flowers (117.36), number of flowering stems (7.4), diameter of flowering stem (3.7 mm), plant height (45.83 cm), fruit fresh weight (6.71 g), fruit dry weight (3.79 g), plant fresh weight (21.96 g) and plant dry weight (15.17 g). Also, this treatment exhibited the highest fruit anthocyanin content and total chlorophyll. Conclusively, the application of ‘PPA2000×PF200’ is recommended because of the lower consumption of perfect fertilizer and the greater effect on traits having a beautiful and economic value for ornamental peppers.