Growth and morpho-physiological assessments of Indonesian red chili cultivars on early vegetative stage under water stress conditions: A comparison of waterlogging and drought

Abstract

Red chili pepper Capsicum annuum L. var. annuum plants are one of the fruity vegetable types that are often cultivated in riparian tropical wetlands but are constrained by water stress such as waterlogging during rainy season and drought in dry season. The aim of this research was to evaluate the growth and morphophysiological responses of red chili pepper cultivars subjected to waterlogging and drought stress conditions. The experiment was carried out in a strip-plot design with two factors. The first factor was three water stress treatments, namely control (field capacity), waterlogging, and drought. The second factor was six cultivars of Indonesian red chili pepper. The findings indicated that both waterlogging and drought stress had a detrimental impact on the reduction of the growth parameters of red chili pepper such as root, shoot and total dry weight. Chili pepper defended its root weights in response to drought stress (0.653 g plant -1 ) whereas it preserved shoot weight in response to waterlogging (0.913 g plant -1 ). In the morphological characters, chili pepper exhibited an increase in specific leaf area expansion in response to both waterlogging (150.82 cm 2 ) and drought (188.82 cm 2 ) compared to control (140.91 cm 2 ), but decreased specific leaf weight during stresses and recovered after 7 d in waterlogging. Leaf chlorophyll content (SPAD) and leaf relative water content (LRWC), as physiological characteristics, also experienced a decline during exposure to both waterlogging and drought during 8 d; yet, SPAD and LRWC able to recover completely at 7 d after waterlogging and drought treatment were terminated.