How Nutrivant and Polysulphate Advance Chili Production
Healthier chili plants produce greater yields for the valuable global chili market
With uses in food, pharmaceutical, and other industries, chili is an extremely important crop with a global market in excess of 1.6 billion US dollars. When it comes to production, India takes the top spot, accounting for around 38% of global production. With such high demand, there are obvious benefits to improving the yield and quality of chili crops. However, with many large and small-scale producers in India, agronomists face considerable challenges in sharing the tools and techniques growers can use to boost their crops. One approach is to use Model Field days to gather farmers together to share knowledge between themselves and allow them to witness firsthand the difference that an optimized crop nutrition program can make to yield.
In Raravi Village, Ballari District (Karnataka State, India), ICL Regional Agronomist Rahul Hanchate invited local chili growers to one such Model Field Day. More than 40 farmers gathered at the event to hear about ICL’s Polysulphate and Nutrivant products and to walk the chili fields, comparing crops grown using the standard farmers’ practice with those nurtured with ICL’s Polysulphate and Nutrivant. As the visiting farmers toured the farm, they noticed that the chili plants fertilized with Polysulphate and Nutrivant were a healthy green color, with fewer fungal diseases and fewer pests and diseases than the untreated plots. The improved health of the plants paid dividends with the crop yield too, with longer and heavier chilis that were more pungent – a valuable quality character.
Polysulphate & Nutrivant | Control | |
---|---|---|
Average chili length | 16.5 cm | 12.7 cm |
Average 10 chili weight | 105 g | 75 g |
Overall, the program went very well. We expect this activity will yield good results in the coming seasons.
With the local and global demand for high-quality chilis, events like this are of great value, not only in sharing knowledge of suitable products for farmers’ crops but also in allowing farmers to see firsthand the potential benefits they could see. Farmers can clearly see how investing in their crops using ICL’s high-quality Polysulphate and Nutrivant crop nutrition products should pay dividends with crop quality and yield.