Efficacy of Organic Products as Black Pepper Foliar Fertilizer

Abstract

Black pepper (Piper nigrum), known as "King of spices", is a perennial export oriented cash crop in Malaysia. To furnish the pepper berries according to the world demand, integrated fertilizersregimes in black pepper is becoming relevant today. An investigation was conducted to determinethe influence of newly developed foliar fertilizer when used in combination with soil NPK fertilizeron different growth parameters of the black pepper cultivar SemongokAman. The plants were applied with different rate of NPK compound fertilizer (N:12%, P:12%, K:17%: Mg:2%) and foliar fertilizer.The plants were allowed to grow for upto12 months of age for taking observations on differentvegetative growth parameters. Considering the realization of highest response for five important growth parameters viz., plant height (59.30 cm), plant dry weight (99.68 g), plant root length (74.92cm), dried black pepper yield (572.52 g) and relative growth rate, RGR (1.65g g-1 day-1) after 12 months of planting, it may be concluded that the application of foliar fertilizer supplementation at 5ml/L of water along with 50% of soil NPK fertilizer may be the best nutrient schedule under this agro-climatic condition.