Mitigation of drought stress in eggplant by date straw and plastic mulches

Abstract

Abstract Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is an important vegetative crop, which grow in the different parts of Iran. It is well-known for drought tolerance, but the quality and quantity of the plant suffer from severe water deficit. The current study objected to evaluate the effects of date straw and plastic mulches on biochemical, physiology, and quality characters in eggplant under water deficit. The experiment was performed as a split-split plot based on randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications in Rodan, Hormozgan, Iran. The studied factors including crop water requirement at three levels (40, 70, and 100%), date straw mulch at two levels including control and date straw mulch, and plastic mulch at three soil depths (0, 100, and 120 cm), which were distributed in the main, sub, and sub-sub plots, respectively. ANOVA illustrated that the triple- interaction effects of the three studied factors were statically significant on the measured characters (P