Effect of Water Stress on the Growth and Yield of Sweet Pepper (Capsicum annum L.) under Greenhouse Conditions

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to check the effect of different levels of irrigation treatments on the growth and yield of sweet pepper on a sandy soil, under greenhouse conditions by using drip irrigation system having flow rate of drippers 2 liters per hour (LPS). The field study was carried out on a randomized complete block design (RCBD) having seven different rates of irrigation treatments with four replications. The irrigation water applied in such a way that (T₁ = one time, T₂ = two times, T₃ = three times, T₄ = four times, T₅ = five times, T₆ = six times, and T₇ = seven times) application per day. The results revealed that different levels of irrigation water application brought a positive effect in sweet pepper production. Amongst all the treatments, T₅ was observed to be more suitable and economical as it took least days to develop flowers (24.41 days), give more number of fruits per plant (18.51 fruits), highest fruit length (8.20 cm), highest fruit diameter (7.09 cm), highest fruit weight (103.80 g), and highest fruit yield (7.62 tons donum^-1) respectively. However, treatment T₁ showed inadequate results regarding all the parameters. Results suggests that the five times application of water of three minutes long duration per day to the sweet pepper plants, with 15 minutes gap in between each water application were found suitable for best possible growth and yield of sweet pepper under greenhouse conditions using drip irrigation system.