Effect of age of transplants on growth and yield of capsicum

The present study was conducted at Vegetable Research Farm of Department of Vegetable Science, Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh during summer season of 2008. The experiment was laid in a randomized block design with three replications. There were ten treatments comprising of transplants starting from 15 days old with a gap of 3 days. The variety used for the study was California Wonder. Maximum values for most of the characters like survival of seedlings after transplanting (100%), number of fruits per plant (8.09), fruit yield per plot (7.58 kg) and harvest duration (85 days) were obtained using 36 days old transplants while minimum values were recorded using 18 days old transplants for all these characters. It was concluded that 33 to 36 days old transplants were best regarding growth and yield of capsicum in mid hill regions of Himachal Pradesh.