Effects of mycorrhiza, seaweed and bionutrient applied to reduce the salt stress on nutrient content, plant growth, malondialdehyde (MDA) and proline in pepper

Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) is an important vegetable crop in Turkey; at the same time, salinity is a big problem in some areas of Turkey. The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse at the Silifke Vocational School of Mersin University, in March 2022. The pepper cultivar Arena F1 was used as plant material. Mycorrhiza (Endo Roots Soluble-ERS), seaweed and bionutrient (PGPR) were applied to pepper plants. Pepper seedlings were kept for 2 minutes in water with mycorrhiza (3 g L-1), seaweed (3 mL L-1) or bionutrient (3 g L-1), prepared in separate containers, and then were planted in pots in a greenhouse. After planting, 200 mL was applied to each seedling to the soil twice at a one-week interval. The plants were subjected to NaCl (150 mM) for 20 days during early seedling growth. In this study, it has been determined that the treatments with mycorrhiza, seaweed and bionutrient have a positive effect on plant growth, fresh weight (FW), dry weight (DW), leaf number, plant height and root length, and amount of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calsium (Ca), and magnesium (Mg) in pepper plants under salt stress. MDA, proline and Na contents of pepper plants increased under salt stress, but these parameters decreased owing to the alleviation of adverse effects of salt stress by using mycorrhiza, seaweed and bionutrients, resulting in the plants' increased tolerance to salt stress.