Success With Sweet Piquante Peppers

Sweet piquanté peppers, popularly known as peppadews, require all the attention a farmer can spare to produce good results. Limpopo farmer, Jaco Kriel, spoke to Gerhard Uys about producing this challenging but rewarding crop.

- Gerhard Uys

Jaco Kriel is a highly diversified farmer near Vaalwater in Limpopo. An agricultural consultant for eight years, he went on to become a grape and ostrich farmer, but today focuses on breeding Bonsmara cattle and growing seed-maize, peanuts, dry beans, and sweet piquanté peppers. Although the latter may be one of many enterprises in his operation, Jaco admits that this crop requires more than its fair share of attention to grow successfully.

Sweet piquanté peppers are a cultivar of chilli pepper (Capsicum baccatam). They are better known as peppadews, a trademarked name of Peppadew International, the South Africa based processor, distributor and exporter of the fruit. Jan supplies the company directly. He plants between 10ha and 12ha of his 100ha to this crop.

“When a farmer wakes up in the morning, he should think about how to expand his operation or improve production. He won’t survive otherwise. I couldn’t add to my lands, so had to produce more intensively. Some farmers in the area had already planted sweet peppers, so I contacted them,” Jaco recalls.

CLIMATE, SOIL & TERRAIN

The average rainfall in the Vaalwater area is around 650mm, but in the past few seasons below average rainfall was recorded. Sweet piquanté peppers require irrigation, with plants needing 5mm/ha/day from drip irrigation at peak harvesting time.

“One cannot plant it as a dryland crop as it requires adequate water. I planted under centre pivot last year, but this wasted water because the rows were too far apart.

“This year I used drip irrigation, which seems to be the most effective,” Jaco says.