Effect of Different Mulch Materials on Yield and Nutrition Profile of Common Capsicum (Capsicum annuum) Cultivars in Bangladesh

Capsicum is a nutritious vegetable and its cultivation in farms is getting popular in Bangladesh. Although many efforts have lain to explore better yielding and nutritionally rich cultivars with suitable modern cultivation techniques but still have to find the desired outcome. Thus, it’s necessary to conduct further research to identify the high-yielding and nutritious capsicum cultivars in Bangladesh. An experiment was conducted from July 2021 to June 2022 at the Bangladesh Institute of Research and Training on Applied Nutrition (BIRTAN) research field with three cultivars of capsicum: B₀ = California Wonder, B₁ = BARI Misti Morich-1 and B₂ = BARI Misti Morich-2 and three mulching: T₀ = No mulching, T₁ = Water hyacinth, T₂ = Poly Mulching in randomized complete block design with three replications to identify better quality capsicum cultivar and suitable mulching material. Among cultivars the BARI Misti Morich-2 (B₂) showed increased agronomic parameters like number of branches and effective branches per plant, leaves length and width, consequently yield and yield contributing traits were also enhanced like fruits per plant, fruit length, fruit diameter and yield per plant (25.97%, 4.54%, 3.64% and 21.43%, respectively). Poly Mulching (T₂) increased agronomic traits, yield traits and yield (0.61 kg) than BARI Misti Morich-1 (T₁). The combined effect of B₂T₂ increased the number of branches per plant, effective branches per plant, leaves length and breadth by 40%, 90%, 15.57% and 26.22%, respectively, hence resulting in an increased yield of 20%. BARI Misti Morich-2 cultivar showed an increase in Fe, Zn and Vitamin-C content of 26.24% and 23.10%, 8.82% and 5.14%, and 6.03% and 5.74% than B0 and B1 cultivars, respectively. Therefore, BARI Misti Morich-2 exhibited the improved agronomic, yield and nutritional traits of capsicum under poly mulching among other cultivars in Bangladesh.