By Joseph Mugenyi
Kampala:Several Ugandans are these days embracing the growing of Sweet/ Bell Pepper and they are minting lots of money from the venture.
This is because unlike hot pepper, Bell Pepper has very ready market, since a lot of people consume it. Bell pepper is also locally known as green paper, because of the popular type grown in Uganda known as California Wonder, which is green when ready for consumption.
Green pepper varieties grown in Uganda include;
1.California wonder
2.Bell boy
3.Sweeted cherry, etc
California Wonder PepperHow To Plant Green Pepper:
- Scatter your seeds in a nursery bed
- Till up the land meant for planting and make 2cm deep holes
- Scatter manure in a hole
- Transplant your seedlings from the nursery bed.
- Water and spray with a mixture of fungicide and pesticide
- Weed at a 2 weeks interval
- Spray at a 2 weeks interval.
- After 60-90 days, you can harvest pepper.
Harvesting Green Pepper:
1.Harvest as soon as pepper reaches desired size.
Note that the longer they stay on a plant the more sweet and vitamin C content they get, but they shouldn’t be allowed to ripen.
2.Use sharp knife or scissors for least damage
3.Can be refrigerated in plastic bags for 10 days after harvest
4.Can be dried using conventional oven.
Marketing Green Pepper:
There is a wide market for green pepper both locally and internationally.
Recently, a flat sack of pepper costs between Shs50,000-80,000.
This means on average it will be bought at Shs65,000 which is some good money compared to the capital invested.
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Mugenyi Joseph (MJ Farmer) is a practicing Agribusiness entrepreneur based in Kibiito and a software Engineering student at Makerere University. He can be reached on 0701-443309, Email: mugenyijosemj@gmail.com
