Vol. 9, Special Issue 8, Part E (2025)

A research study was conducted in year of 2021-22 at the Instructional Farm, Department of Vegetable Science, College of Horticulture, Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola, to evaluate the impact of transplanting dates and crop covers on the growth and flowering in chilli. The experiment followed a Factorial Randomized Block Design with twelve treatment combinations, each replicated three times. Treatments included three transplanting dates: T₁ (25^th November), T₂ (10^th December) and T₃ (25^th December) and three crop cover thickness: viz., C₁ (17gsm), C₂ (20gsm) and C₃ (23gsm) and one control C₄ (without crop cover). Among the different treatment combinations, the T₁C₁ (November 25 transplanting + 17gsm crop cover) proved to be the most effective, significantly improving growth parameters including plant height, number of branches, plant spread, stem girth and leaf area. While in flowering aspect minimum days required to first flower initiation (32.14) and 50% flowering (42.19) was noticed in treatment combinations T₃C₁ (November 25 transplanting + 17 gsm crop cover).