effects of different sowing depths and soil compactions on emergence and initial growth of pepper varieties (capsicum annum l.)

one of the main problems in the mass production of pepper transplant is the stickiness of seed coat to the cotyledony leaves that can lead to no emergence or having poor emergence of pepper seedlings. therefore, in order to evaluate the effects of different sowing depths and soil compactions on emergence and early seedlings growth of pepper, a greenhouse experiment was conducted in the faculty of agriculture, ferdowsi university of mashhad, iran, in 2010, using a completely randomized design with factorial arrangement and four replications. the experimental factors included different levels of soil compactions (0 (no compaction), 150.5, 681.340 and 1201.7 pa, different sowing depths (0 (surface), 1 and 2 cm) and different pepper varieties (olter, california wonder, em bell, anahiem and iranian falei). the results indicated that except the seed coat adherence to cotyledon leaves and the emergence percentage traits, the compaction treatments had a significant effect on (dry matter of seedlings, height, leaf area, number of abnormal seedling and mean emergence time) were significant. in addition, sowing depth treatments had positive and significant effects on increasing the number of seedling with releasing seed coats from the cotyledony leaves.