CALCIUM AND ETHEPHON EFFECTS ON PAPRIKA PEPPER FRUIT RETENTION AND FRUIT COLOR DEVELOPMENT

Ethephon has increased yields of red fruit, but its use as a pepper (C apsicum annuum L.) fruit ripening agent has been limited by premature fruit abscission and defoliation. We tested ethephon solutions of 0, 1 500, 3000, 4500, and 6000 mu l.liter(-1) with or without 0.1 nr Ca(OH) (2) as a onetime foliar application to field-grown paprika pepper in s outhwestern Oklahoma. There,vas a linear increase in fruit abscission with increasing ethephon rates in 2 of 3 years, with or without added Ca. Marketable fruit as a percentage of total harvested fruit weight w as improved by ethephon at 6000 mu l.liter(-1) in 2 of 3 years, primar ily due to a decrease in weight of harvested green fruit. However, eth ephon never significantly increased the dry weight of harvested market able fruit over that obtained from the control. There also was no effe ct of ethephon on the intensity of red pigment extracted from dehydrat ed marketable fruit. The only consistently significant effect of Ca(OH )(2) was an undesirable increase in the retention of green fruit on th e plants. Ethephon had little value as a fruit-ripening agent for papr ika pepper under the conditions of our studies, and Ca(OH)(2) was not useful as an additive to ethephon sprays. Chemical name used: (2-chlor oethyl) phosphonic acid (ethephon).