The time from transplanting to the first harvest varies with the type and cultivar grown. In the United States Boswell et al. (1964) give the time to the green mature stage of sweet peppers as 58-82 days, with many of them about 78 days.

Hot chilli peppers are given as 100-115 days, with up to 150 days to the red ripe stage. ‘Tabasco’ is said to be a very late-maturing cultivar, but no time is given. Gollifer (1973) in an experiment on Indian chillies in the British Solomon Islands gives the time to first harvesting as 17 weeks after sowing the seeds, continued at fortnightly intervals for a period of 24 weeks.

On lighter sandier soils they suggest a dressing of 840- 1120 kg per hectare of a 5 : 8 : 8 or 5 : 10 : 10 fertilizer before transplanting, with a top dressing of nitrogen at fruit setting, to which is added 56 kg of muriate or sulphate of potash.

At Dala in the British Solomon Islands, Gollifer (1973) obtained mean yields of 3134 kg per hectare of dried chillies from the Indian cultivar `Majhaillupalama’ after a harvesting period of 27 weeks from 93 kg/hectare of potassium, which was a significant 76 per cent increase over the control yield.

The potassium sulphate was applied at transplanting and 5 weeks later. The affect of nitrogen applied as urea was not significant. An organic mulch also gave a significant response which was largely due to the potassium content. In Andhra Pradesh in India, 67 kg N, 34 kg P205 and 56 kg K20 per hectare was found to be ideal for the rain-fed chilli crop (Aiyadurai, 1966). The crop should be weeded or the weeds controlled by means of herbicides.

Some of the larger growing cultivars will require a wider spacing with plants 75-90 cm apart in rows 105 cm apart. In the British Solomon Islands, Gollifer (1973) used a spacing of 1.2 m between rows and a within-row spacing of 0.6 m. The best yields in many parts of India are given at a spacing of 60 x 15 cm.