Impact of Composting on Growth, Vitamin C and Calcium Content of Capsicum chinense

The nutritional quality of the food has become a serious concern in existing agricultural system as the present world aims to enhance only the food production. A field experiment was carried out to study the effect of different fertilizers on growth, vitamin C and calcium content in yield of Capsicum chinense at Regional Agricultural Research and Development Center, Makandura consisting four treatments as without fertilizer (control/ T1), only compost (T2), compost + inorganic fertilizer (T3) and only inorganic fertilizer (T4) with a randomized complete block design (RCBD) replicating four times. Vitamin C content was measured by Indophenol dye redox titration method and calcium content was analyzed by atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Data was analyzed using analysis of variance. The highest growth was recorded in T3 and no significant differences between treatments in growth parameters at 50% flowering stage.The Vitamin C content was highest in treatment with only compost (T2) and the lowest in treatment compost + inorganic fertilizer (T3). The results indicated that yield from organically managed crops contain significantly higher amount of vitamin C (9.24±2.27 mg/100g, p= 0.0274). The highest calcium content was found in T1 (control) (1.1±0.05 %) and a significant difference (p= 0.0296) was observed between T1 (control) and T3 (calcium=0.75±0.12 %). Compost alone can be used to produce food with high amount of vitamin C. Use of inorganic fertilizer alone or integration of compost with inorganic fertilizer was less effective in producing high quality nutritious foods.