Seed Production of Vegetable, Tuber and Spice Crops (2+1)

Botany

• Flowers are very minute.
• Monoecious or dioecious or hermophrodite forms occur in different varieties.
• The male flowers are very few, 1 to 19 per cent in different varieties.
• The fruit is a single seeded berry, which has a thin, soft pericarp surrounding the seed.
• Pepper vines start yielding usually from the 3rd to 4th year. The vines flower in May – June.
  
• It takes 6 to 8 months from flowering to ripening stage.
  
• Turning of green fruit to red colour is symptom of maturity.
  
• The whole spikes are picked during November to February in plains and January to March in hills.



Figure 1.Pepper plant and spikes