Black pepper-Inter cultivation
Protect the young vines from hot sun during summer by providing artificial shade. Cover the young plants with dry arecanut leaves, coconut leaves or twigs of trees until summer months are over.
Mulching the basins of pepper vines during summer months with saw dust, arecanut husk and dry leaves is also recommended.
Pepper garden should be well drained. Water logging is harmful for pepper plant and high humidity may promote the incidence of foot rot disease.
Carry out digging around the standards and vines at a radius of about 1 meter from the base or in the entire plantation, twice during the year, the first at the onset of southwest monsoon and the second towards the end of northeast monsoon.
However, in foot rot affected gardens, digging should be avoided and weeds removed by slashing. In the early stages, tie the vines to the standards, if found necessary.
Two to three rounds of hand weeding are recommended in a year to control weeds. During weeding, plant base should not be disturbed causing injury to the root system. Only slash weeding is recommended.
Where pepper is grown in large areas, growing of cover crops like Calapagonium muconoides is recommended. When such cover crops are grown, they are to be cut back regularly from the base of the plants to prevent them from twining along with the pepper vines.
Lowering of vines after one year’s growth will promote lateral branch production.
Removal of unwanted terminal shoot growths and hanging shoots should be done as and when necessary.
If the terrain of the land is sloppy or uneven, carry out contour bunding or terracing to prevent soil erosion.
Apply cattle manure / compost / green leaves @10 kg / plant / annum just at the onset of southwest monsoon and cover lightly with soil.
Lime or dolomite has to be applied in acid soils two weeks ahead of fertilizer application. The recommended dosage is 500 gram lime per vine in alternate years.
Fertilizers should be applied at a distance of about 30 cm all around the vine and covered with a layer of soil. Care should be taken to avoid direct contact of fertilizers with the roots of pepper vine. Fertilizer should be applied only when there is sufficient soil moisture
Intercropping of pepper gardens with ginger, turmeric, colocasia and elephant foot yam is advantageous. Banana should be gown only in initial years.
Black pepper trailed on standards should be irrigated with 8-10 litre of water per day through drip between October to March. If drip system is not in use, application of 100 liters of water per vine once in a week from October to March is necessary.
Prune and train the standards in March-April every year to remove excessive overgrowth and to give them a proper shape. The effective height of the standard is to be limited to about 6 m. A second pruning of the standards may be done in July-August, if there is excessive shade in the garden.
Under planting should be attempted at about 20 years after planting or when a regular declining trend in yield appears. The old and senile vines can be removed 3-5years after under planting depending upon the growth of the young vines.
In case of bush pepper, the bushy nature of the plant will have to be ensured by proper pruning of the viny growth. The potted plants are to be kept preferably under partial shade. It is necessary that re-potting is carried out after every two years.