In a previous blog post, we reported on the importance of antioxidants, how they work and their quantitative implications for the famous berries. We would now like to expand on this line of thought and present the surprising results of a thesis experiment by Bence Szabolcs Fekete.
Bence is an agricultural engineering student at the Kaposvár Campus of the Hungarian University of Agricultural and Life Sciences. He chose sweet peppers as his experimental subject, as he would like to work with sweet pepper cultivation and processing in the future.
Although the paprika is considered a Hungarian product, its domestic production has been in drastic decline since the 1990s. From 9000 hectares in the past, it has fallen to less than 1000 hectares in 2023. There are two main reasons for this decline, one is the unfavourable change in climatic conditions and the other is economic, with the increasing cost of production not keeping pace with the increasing cost of sales. The remaining spice paprika growers are unanimous in seeing an opportunity for expansion in the production of premium spice products.
In the experiment, Szeged 80 spice peppers under Mikomax Garden was planted at the same time. The peppers received all other treatments (nutrients, irrigation) in the same way as the control group.
Bence has been a careful farmer with the plants in the experiment, despite the fact that the prolonged summer drought has made his job much more difficult. To get results he tested the height and diameter of the plants. Several times during the growing season he counted the immature and mature fruits and measured the mature fruits, but he did not find any significant difference. Plants treated with Mikomax appeared to perform as well as the control group. Although Bence notes that peppers ripened faster in the Mikomax-treated rows.
Peppers have the highest antioxidant content of any vegetable plant, as we have known since our Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Györgyi. But in addition to vitamin C, the colour of capsicum is also due to antioxidants, and colour is one of the most important quality factors. The idea was therefore to continue the experimental work in the laboratory, in addition to the morphological studies. Thus, the total antioxidant capacity based on iron-reducing capacity was compared.
This gave the following result:
... to quote Bencze:
„This procedure produced the most divergent result of my thesis experiment. A MikoMax Garden the antioxidant capacity of peppers from rows treated with the product was almost double that of the untreated control group and Asco Start Bio Bakterrethe value of the crops treated.”
An important lesson from the experiment is that the work of microorganisms in soil is often invisible to the naked eye. Humanity is only just beginning to discover it. We highly recommend our mycorrhizae, not only to pepper growers, but to anyone who wants to harvest healthier vegetables and fruits from their gardens, rich in vitamins and bioactive compounds.
„Nature is a pure system, there are only pure answers.” - Albert Szent-Györgyi
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