Abstract
This study aimed to evaluate growth and physiological aspects of ‘All Big’ bell pepper, under saline stress and exogenous application of proline on the leaves. The research was conducted in pots adapted as drainage lysimeters under greenhouse conditions, using sandy-loam eutrophic Regolithic Neosol, in the municipality of Campina Grande-PB, Brazil. The experiment was set in randomized blocks, in order to test two levels of irrigation water electrical conductivity - ECw (0.6 and 3.0 dS m -1 ) associated with four proline concentrations (0, 10, 20 and 30 mmol L -1 ). Plants were grown in 10-L pots for 50 days after transplantation. This period corresponds to the transition of vegetative and reproductive stages, in which plants were evaluated for growth, gas exchanges and chlorophyll a fluorescence. The increase in irrigation water salinity reduced growth, gas exchanges and the efficiency of photosystem II in bell pepper plants. Proline concentrations from 12.8 to 16.8 mmol L -1 incremented the activity of gas exchanges, reducing the effect of saline stress on bell pepper plants. Proline concentrations under study did not influence chlorophyll a fluorescence of ‘All Big’ bell pepper plants. Key words: Saline water, gas exchanges, chlorophyll a fluorescence, proline.
Highlights
Bell pepper (Capsicum annumm L.) is one of the main Solanaceous crop cultivated in the world
This study aimed to evaluate growth and physiological aspects of ‘All Big’ bell pepper, under saline stress and exogenous application of proline on the leaves
This study aimed to evaluate growth, gas exchanges, and chlorophyll a fluorescence and physiological aspects of „All Big‟ bell pepper, as a function of saline stress and exogenous application of proline on the leaves
Summary
Bell pepper (Capsicum annumm L.) is one of the main Solanaceous crop cultivated in the world. In Northeast Brazil, more precisely in the semiarid region, bell pepper is an important crop and its cultivation is located in irrigated areas, where family farming is practiced. The use of saline water affects the development of sensitive crops, such as bell pepper, which tolerates, without significant yield losses, contents of salts in the soil between 1.3 and 3.0 dS m-1 in terms of electrical conductivity of the soil saturation extract or between 0.8 and 2.0 dS m-1 in terms of irrigation water salinity (Ayers and Westcot, 1999). Countless disorders have been observed due to the excess of salts in the soil, among which: disorders in the permeability of cell membranes, alterations in stomatal conductance, photosynthesis and ionic balance, which lead to reduction in plant development, regardless of the cationic nature of the salts (Aktas et al, 2006; Leonardo et al, 2008). Al-Jasim et al (2012) observed application of proline (0, 1, 5, 10 mM), sprayed exogenously, on seedlings of bell pepper seedlings caused decrease in almost all growth parameters of the non-stressed plant
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