EFFECT OF DROUGHT ON PLANT DEVELOPMENT IN URFA PEPPER GENOTYPES

Abstract

Drought is an important abiotic stress that negatively affects production. Due to drought stress, plant root and shoots are negatively affected. Especially in plants having high water needs such as pepper, drought stress reduces yield. It is very important for producers and researchers to detect genotypes tolerant to drought, as in Urfa pepper which is high level of trade in our country. Therefore, in this study, the effect of drought stress on plant dry and fresh weight, plant height and number of leaves, stem diameters, leaf proportional water content and membrane damage index were investigated in Gölpınar, Hilvan, Osmanbey genotypes and İnan 3363 standard pepper variety. Pepper seeds were planted in plastic pots containing 1 liter of soil and two seeds were planted in each pot. A plant was left in each pot after the real leaves were opened. When the plants were 30-days seedling periods, irrigation was halted in the plants to be applied drought and no water was given for 19 days. Control plants were continued to irrigated according to need. The temperature of the climate room where the study was carried out was measured as 23 and the light intensity was measured as 8000 lux. As a result of the study designed according to randomized experimental design with three replications, Gölpınar and Hilvan genotypes were tolerant of drought stress, while İnan 3363 pepper variety were found sensitive.