THE IMPACT OF WATERPAD AND DIFFERENT IRRIGATION LEVELS ON THE YIELD, PLANT DEVELOPMENT AND SOME QUALITY FEATURES OF THE PEPPER

Drought is one of the most important environmental stress factors that limit plant development and yield. Therefore, new strategies should be launched to combat with it. One of these new strategies is the use of polymers that enable water storage in the plant root zone. In this respect, this study aims to examine the impact of waterpad, which is applied to the plant root zone in order to alleviate the negative effect of drought, on the yield, plant development and some fruit quality features. The study was carried out with peppers, grown in perlite and cocopeat growing medium greenhouses, and irrigated at different levels (100%, 75% and 50%). The study was conducted in randomized blocks in accordance with factorial experimental designs with three replications. As plant material, Erciyes F-1 pepper variety was used. At the end of the study, it was found that a decrease in irrigation levels results in a reduction in the total yield, total fruit number, fruit diameter, fruit size, fruit weight, shoot and dry leaf weight, node number, plant length and stem diameter. However, no significant difference was observed between 100% and 75% irrigation levels, depending on the substrate and analysed feature. With the use of Waterpad, a 17.40% increase was observed in the yield of perlite medium while, in cocopeat medium, the rate of the increase was 2.58%. Moreover, in the waterpad-administered plants, the vitamin C content, brix amount, and titratable acidity content were found to be higher. As a result, it can be suggested that waterpad be used for lessening the unfavorable effect of drought in places where the irrigation facilities are limited.