Pepper has a prolonged germination period and an optimum
germination temperature requirement of 30 8C (O’Sullivan and
Bouw, 1984). When pepper is sown directly in the field, soil
temperatures can often be suboptimal, causing delayed and nonuniform
seedling emergence. For example, in the Kahramanmaras
province, one of the commercial red pepper production areas
in Turkey, the mean soil temperature ranges from 10 8C to 20 8C at
the planting depth on typical seeding dates (Korkmaz, 2005).
Lorenz and Maynard (1988) reported that emergence from 1.2 cm
soil depth took 8–9 days at soil temperatures of 25 8C and was
prevented totally at temperatures lower than 15 8C. As the
emergence is delayed, the problem is exacerbated because
the probability of soil crust formation becomes greater and the