Pest and diseases of pigeon peas Pests The biggest threat to pigeon peas are gram caterpillar, the red gram plume moth and the gram pod fly. There are no effective control methods against these pests. Thrips cause premature flower drop but there are chemicals that can control them. The caterpillar of the spotted borer can [...]

Chilli insect control is very similar to tomatoes, peppers and potatoes as they are all from the same family of plants. You could say they are all cousins to each other. All these plants belong to the genus Capsicum or Solanaceae families. If you have grown tomatoes or green peppers before, be prepared to have the [...]

Chillies diseases and their control Chillies diseases are the same as those found on tomatoes, peppers and brinjals. The reason is that they are all from the same family of crops. Most small scale farmers do not have the necessary industrial spray equipment to control chilli diseases effectively but that is no reason that hand [...]

Inoculant is used to help various legumes produce their own nitrogen. The pea is a legume and can use the nitrogen released in the root nodules by the nitrogen fixing bacteria. Inoculate pea seed if it is the first time planting on a specific soil. Inoculate the seed if the soil has not been planted [...]

Climatic requirements for green peas Green peas are grown mostly by large scale contract farmers that sell the product to processors. The green pea Pisum sativum is a very well known and economically important vegetable crop in South Africa. The total area under production is about 10,000 ha. Most of the area is produced for freezing [...]

Calculating fertilizer requirements for a crop is quite often more of an art than exact science.  The reason is that soil is a dynamic micro world on its own that changes continuously.  It is full of microscopic living organisms such as bacteria, viruses and insects that feed on it and break complex compounds down on [...]

Harvesting dried hot chillies is different from harvesting normal ripe hot chillies. Harvest dried hot chillies after the plants have died of frost. The best time to harvest is in winter. Yes you grow them in summer. But harvest in winter. A grower harvests normal peppers or fresh chillies in late summer or at the [...]

Chillies are from the same family as tomatoes, and green peppers. So the climatic requirements are similar. They are part of the scientific group called Capsicum frutescens L. The common pepper or green pepper is from the family Capsicum Annuum L. So you can see they are very closely related. One of the main advantages [...]