Spice paprika is a plant requiring warmth, a lot of sunshine as well as suitable irrigation water and balanced nutrient supply is indispensable for its optimal growth. Its vegetation time starts after the spring frosts and finishes at the time of the first autumn frost, and this is the factor that determines its growing in Hungary.

As far as its soil requirements are concerned, the best is the easily warming sandy clay with high organic matter content. The grower must ensure natural or artificial water supply during the whole vegetation period. However, bearing in mind climatic conditions, in some years under extreme weather conditions, it is impossible to grow spice paprika economically in Hungary without irrigation.

Considering the high temperature requirements and the relatively short vegetation time, the primarily recommended growing technology is transplanting. With the help of this an earlier harvest can be achieved, crops can be harvested 1 or 2 weeks earlier than with direct seeding. However, we should not forget about the costs of the different technologies either.

In the case of growing seedlings, seed are sown in professionally prepared seedbeds in late March in greenhouse, at the rate of 15-20 g/sq. metres. The aim is to have the seedlings mature foliage and rooting by mid-May. During the growing of the seedlings it is essential to have appropriate plant protection – preventive, if possible – against diseases, lodging etc. When the weather becomes warmer, the hardening of the seedlings should be started parallel with their further development before planting them outside. This is when the seedlings should be treated with a copper-based spray.

The seedlings should be transplanted in the second half of May, into the soil that previously undergone deep ploughing in the autumn and stable manure used. After appropriate land preparation and weed control we transplant the seedlings during the second half of May. The seedlings should be planted at 0,5-0,7 meters row distance, 150-200 thousand seedlings/ha. After planting them into the field, depending on weather conditions, the plants should be provided – preferably as preventive measures – with fungicides, bactericides, insecticides and foliage fertilizers as needed.

During the vegetation period, weed control is executed by inter-row cultivation (3-5 occasions) and chipping weeds in the rows. During the second half of the vegetation period chipping should be kept continuously in order to prevent growing the larger weeds.

Direct seeding differs significantly from the technology explained above. We start by sowing the paprika seed directly into the field in beginning or mid- April – naturally in accordance with the weather conditions – in such a way that final number of plants is around 350-600 thousand plants/ha, depending on the cultivar. The growing of the direct seeded paprika is similar to the one described above, however before and after sowing a suitable pre- and post emergence weedicide should be used.

Harvesting is carried out bay hand, in several steps. The reason for this is that the fruits of most of the cultivars are not ripening at the same time that means that the plants have ripe semi-ripe and still green fruits. At the first picking, 60-65 % of the crop can be harvested, depending on the cultivar. After the first picking, the ripening of fruits left on the plants is accelerated . However, as autumn proceeds, the quality content will be lower than the quality parameters of the first picking. Rotten fruits must not be harvested, since rotten crop can induce secondary infections on healthy crop by transmitting pathogens through mechanical injuries acquired during the harvest. This can be a significant resource for quality loss depending on storage and after-ripening.

The quality of the crop grown by transplanting is better, since earlier ripening increases the time of after-ripening on the stem, and so at picking we can harvest crops of higher quality. Furthermore, there is a smaller vulnerability to secondary infections for fruits that have bigger solids content due to natural water loss – and thus increase and loss of quality under storage time is also smaller.