1) Which variety will flower the earliest or latest?

2) What are the differences in growth characteristics between the two varieties?

3) What is the yield among the different varieties using the different fertilizers?

4) What is the cost of production for sweet pepper using different fertilizers?

5) Is there significant differences among the varieties?

[7] The application of 3 tons/ha gives the highest yield of (265 fruits), followed by 2.5 ton/ha application rate (250.33 fruits).

[8] Found that the combination of poultry manure and fertilizer (15 t/ha + 45 kg/ha 15:15:15) gave the highest yield of 14,200 Kg/ha.

[9] They found that poultry manure at a rate of 8 tons/ha give the highest for 2012 and 2014 of 22,071 Kg/ha and 20,090 Kg/ha respectively.

[6] The application of 3 t ha of poultry manure gave a higher yield of pepper of 8395.15 and 7436.79 kg ha respectively for both locations.

[8] Poultry manure rates of 8 tons/ha, 10 tons/ha and 12 tons/ha attained the highest yield of 23,000 kg/ha.

The use of organic manure has been reported to enhance soil productivity, increase the soil’s organic carbon content, soil micro-organism, improves soil structure, the nutrient status of the soil and enhance crop yield [1] [10] [11] .

[12] observed that the application of 10 t/ha of poultry manure gave a significantly greater number of fresh pods and fresh pod weight in okra compared with 50 kg N + 22 kg P + 6 kg K∙ha⁻¹.

[13] reported the beneficial effect of the combined application of organic and inorganic sources which increased fruit number, fruit weight/plant and fruit yield of chilli compared with either organic or inorganic fertilizer applied alone.

[14] observed that chemical fertilizer application could be brought down to 25 to 50 percent when applied with vermicompost. Further, the quantity of organic manure level also can be brought down by 50 per cent when vermicompost was used as a source of organic manure.

[15] found that the application of vermicompost and ammonium nitrate (1:1) which increased the sweet pepper yields but had no significant effect on radish yield.

[16] reported that the yield of sweet pepper has increased with organic treated plot than mineral fertilizers under field conditions. While dry matter increased with increased vermicompost (600 g) and root dry matter (400 g) in the greenhouse condition.

[17] observed that the application of vermicompost on soil conditions in combination with chemical and organic fertilizers significantly increased the growth and yield attributes of chilli as compared to organic and chemical fertilizers alone.

[18] observed maximum plant dry weight and fresh fruit weight in capsicum treated with organic manure like chicken manures, compost and vermicompost treatment than inorganic fertilizers and also increased microbial biomass in the field conditions.

[19] found that the higher chilli fruit yield was obtained with 50% poultry manure and 50% inorganic N.

Poultry manure at 9 t per ha resulted in a higher fruit yield of pepper compared to farm yard manure (FYM) at 30 t per ha and poultry manure has the highest manganese, zinc, and phosphorus contents [20] .

1) To determine which rates of fertilizers will give the best yield,

2) To determine which variety will obtain the highest yield,

3) To determine which variety is more susceptible to pests and diseases,

4) To determine the cost of production for each variety,

5) To determine which can improve the storage life of sweet pepper fruits.

Aristotle obtained significantly better growth parameters for varieties such as plant height, plant spread, and number of branches than Sunsation for crop cycle 1 due to lower average temperature (Figure 2). On the other hand, considerably better growth characteristics were achieved by Sunsation for cycles 2 and 3. Sunsation grew better at high average temperatures while Aristotle at lower temperatures. However, the average growth parameters for both varieties did not differ for the three cycles cultivated under the tunnel house (UV plastic) (Tables 2-5). Pest and disease also affected the growth of both varieties in the second and third cycles nevertheless, Aristotle seems to be more affected, especially in the dryer periods. This current study agrees with [21] reported that high temperatures can severely affect the growth and yield of peppers. [18] found that sweet pepper growth is retarded at a temperature above 32˚C. A similar result was obtained from this experiment as temperature increases plant growth declines rapidly.

Sunsation performed better for the weight of 12 fruits (152.2 g) number of fruits per plant [15] , yield per plant (2.1 kg) and yield per plot (24.8 kg) as compared to Aristotle. These higher values of yield components can be attributed to the genetic capacity inherited which gave better growth in terms of higher plant height (72.5 cm), plant spread (65.1 cm), number of primary branches (2.2), and secondary branches (16.3). These superior growths and yield parameters as recorded in Sunsation have, in turn, resulted in higher yield (21.4 t/ha). It seems that the variety has a better genetic capacity to utilize natural resources like temperature, relative humidity, and nutrients as compared to the Aristotle variety. This variety is more adapted to the conditions under the tunnel house since it had less incidence of pest, disease, bird, and rodent damage as compared to Aristotle which seems to be more susceptible to damages as mentioned earlier. [18] conducted a study and found that plant weight for Sunsation declined from 1935 g in 2015 to 1338 g in 2016 a similar result was also obtained from this experiment. The findings from this trial disagree with [22] found no difference in fruit weight between Sunsation and Aristotle.

Growth parameters such as plant height, plant spread, and the number of branches increased significantly with the application of vermicompost + chemical fertilizer than the other treatments evaluated (Tables 2-5). These enhanced growth characteristics may be a result of better soil health, where vermicompost improved soil structure, aeration, soil compaction, and microbial activity and, therefore enhances water and nutrients uptake by plants. Vermicompost has good physiochemical properties (1.59% N, 0.01% P and 0.06% K, 0.24% Ca, and 0.18% Mg Table 1) and it is also comprised of enzymes such as amylase, lipase, cellulase, and chitinase which break down organic matter in the soil (to release nutrients and make it available to the plant roots). The addition of chemical fertilizer will further increase the nitrogen level in the soil, promote decomposition and provide adequate nitrogen for greater plant growth. These results are similar to [5] [7] [22] [23] also reported an increase in plant growth with the application of vermicompost. These results are consistent with previous research showing the application of vermicompost improved plant growth for sweet pepper and hyacinth bean [6] [10] . Plant growth was similar between Rate 4 (poultry manure + chemical fertilizer) and Rate 3 (vermicompost + poultry manure) (Tables 2-5). These rates may have also improved the physicochemical properties of the soil, where a large number of nutrients (macro and micro) may be released especially nitrogen to speed up the rate of decomposition and thus encourage plant growth.

Rate 2 (vermicompost + chemical fertilizer) had significantly higher yield components such as fruit length (7.4 cm), fruit breadth (7.3 cm), fruit weight (189.5 g), number of fruits (22.7), yield per plant (3.0 kg), yield per plot (38 kg) and total yield (32.8 t/ha) compared to the other treatments. The improvement in yield components can be attributed to the vegetative parameters such as an increase in plant height (91.8 cm), plant spread (88.1 cm), and number of secondary branches (11.5). The vermicompost component in this treatment combination is known to enhance microbial activity which might have improved the availability of macro and micronutrients. It can retain moisture and also regulate the availability of metabolic micronutrients to the plants and thus help in increasing plant growth and yield attributing traits by providing nutrients in the available form. Besides, vermicompost also contains significant quantities of nutrients, a large amount of beneficial microbial populations, and biologically active metabolites particularly gibberellins, cytokinins, auxins, and group B vitamins [24] all of which have a beneficial effect on photosynthesis, translocation and transformation into the development of fruits which are the economic part of the plant. These results are in agreement with findings of several earlier workers viz., [6] [7] [9] [25] in capsicum and [13] [14] [26] [27] in chilli. The use of vermicompost in combination with inorganic fertilizers can increase crop yield and the quality of diverse crops [24] .

The application of Poultry manure + NPK fertilizer recorded the second-highest yield of 25 t/ha. These increases in yield components were because of the considerable improvement in fruit weight (163.8 g), number of fruits (18.3), yield per plant (2.3 kg), and yield per plot (29 kg). This may be due to enhancing soil physical properties such as aggregation, permeability, moisture retention, soil structure and aeration (24) which promote plant growth and development. It is also due to improved soil chemical properties (pH, EC, organic carbon, macro and micronutrients) (Table 1) which provided essential nutrients favouring the rhizosphere more congenial for nutrient uptake and utilization [28] [29] .

Additionally, a notable amount of nitrogen present in poultry manure consists of uric acid and nitrogen in the fertilizer which was readily available to the plant promoting good growth right from the beginning of the crop. A similar observation was observed by [30] . This manure can also increase the soil microbial population responsible for the mineralization of plant nutrients and thus increase nutrient availability to support crop growth and development. The combination of manure and inorganic fertilizer can improve plant yield and quality of many different crop species [24] .

The varieties and rates had a positive response to the growth and yield of sweet peppers. The positive interaction between varieties and rates may be due to the increased availability of macronutrients and micronutrients along with growth hormones and chelating agents which provided a favourable environment for the proper growth and development of sweet peppers. Among the interactions, plants of Sunsation variety treated with vermicompost + inorganic fertilizer recorded a considerably higher yield of 34.8 t/ha peppers. This may be due to the significant improvement in fruit weight (195.2 g), number of fruits per plant (24.1), plant weight (3.3 kg), and plot yield (40.4 kg). It seems that the Sunsation variety has a better inherited genetic capacity to utilize nutrients provided by vermicompost + inorganic fertilizer. These findings are supported by [7] [9] [25] [13] in capsicum and [13] [14] [26] [27] in chilli, who found that vermicompost increases the growth and development of bell peppers.

The rates and storage temperature significantly influenced fruit shelf-life. Plants treated with vermicompost + poultry manure (Rate 3) recorded a significantly longer shelf life of 14.71 days at room temperature (30.3˚C). The application of vermicompost + inorganic fertilizer and poultry manure + inorganic fertilizer obtained a similar fruit shelf-life of 13.29 and 13.04 days respectively. These results agree with the findings of [3] for fruit shelf-life. The higher shelf-life achieved by Rate 3 may be due to lower respiration and transpiration rates which reduce shrinkage and ethylene metabolism. A similar result was obtained by [17] for tomato shelf-life. It seems that the use of inorganic fertilizer combined with manure or compost can also improve sweet pepper shelf-life to a great extent compared to no fertilizer application. This result agrees with [17] who found that the combined use of manure and inorganic fertilizer significantly increased tomato shelf-life as compared to inorganic fertilizer usage. At a refrigerated temperature of 7˚C, fruit shelf-life increased to about 21 days for all treatments except Rate 1. This higher shelf-life is a result of significantly lower rates of respiration and transpiration rates that reduces shrinkage and ethylene metabolism.