THE INFLUENCE OF PLANT ACTIVATORS ON THE YIELD AND FRUIT QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANICALLY GROWN PEPPER

The interest of consumers to organic foods has been increasing with a higher acceleration in each passing day. Among the reasons for the interest in organic consumption, the demand to consume higher quality foods and environmental care play the main role. In the study, the yield and food quality characteristics of organically produced peppers were compared to those of the conventionally produced peppers. For this purpose, three different plant activators (Crop-Set, Soil-Set and Manda 31) were used to grow peppers in organic parcells and the obtained results were compared to the results obtained from control and conventional production parcells in pepper production. At the end of the study, as compared to the control, the yield, early yield, fruit physical quality (fruit weight, fruit length and diameter), total sugars, reducing sugars, total chlorophyll, chlorophyll a and b values showed increases with the application of plant activators. Moreover, as compared to the conventional production the Crop-Set and Manda 31 treatments increased the total sugar, reducing sugar and total chlorophyll contents of pepper. The results have demonstrated that plant activators have positively affected the yield and food quality of pepper produced organically and could be used successfully in organic pepper production.