Tropical and subtropical vegetables (2+1)

Harvesting and yield

• The crop is harvested for either green fruits or red ripe fruits by hand picking. The picking of green fruits continues for about 2 months at an internal of 10-12 days and they will be five to six pickings for green chillies and 3-4 for red ripe fruits. Drying of red ripe fruits for about 5-7 days in bright sun light is necessary before marketing or storage. When there is a good demand for green chillies one or two picking of green fruits can be done even of the crop is grown for red chillies.
  
• The yield may be about 7 to 16 tonnes per hectare of green chillies and 12-20t/ha of non pungent sweet capsicums or bell peppers. In case of dry chillies the yield may be 0.5-1.0t/ha of rain fed & 1.5-2.5t/ha in irrigated crop. The yield of fresh green chillies is 3-4 times higher than that of fresh red ripe chillies and 6 to 10 times that of dry chillies. However the proportion of dry to fresh ripe chillies depends upon quality of seeds and the thickness of the inner wall, the pericarp of the fruit.