Effect of Some Soil Amendments on Fruit and Seed Yield of Sweet Pepper under Water Stress Conditions: 2-Yield and Quality Parameters

Abstract

A field experiment aimed to study the response of deficit irrigation water under both traditional and drip irrigation systems combined with soil amendments, on yield and quality. The experiment tested 30 treatments arranged in strip split plot design. The horizontal plots were allocated to the irrigation systems (surface and drip irrigation), whereas the vertical plots were devoted to the irrigation regimes of 40, 60 and 80% of the irrigation water requirement (IWR), while the sub plots were included five soil amendments (without, 250, 500 kg.fed potassium silicate ore and 35, 70kg.fed potassium humate). The results showed that the drip irrigation system produced significantly higher values of No. of flowers/plant, fruit setting %, early yield, total fruit yield and total seed yield per fed. compared to surface irrigation system. Results indicated that significantly highest values were recorded from the irrigation regime at 80% following irrigation at 60 % of the irrigation water requirement (IWR). Results also showed that, the higher values were obtained from soil amendments at 70 kg/fed from potassium humate following with 500 kg/fed from potassium silicate. In addition, the results showed that a higher average for all the above parameters were obtained from soil amendments at 70 kg/fed from potassium humate following with 500 kg/fed from potassium silicate under drip irrigation system at 80% (6922 m/fed.) following irrigation at 60% of IWR (5192 m/fed.). Finally, we recommend this treatment because it saves water irrigation (4091and 5821 m/fed. respectively) and obtains the best yield with improved quality of pepper fruits.