Effects of drought stress on growth, physiological and biochemical parameters of two Ethiopian red pepper (Capsicum annum L.) cultivars

Abstract

Drought is the most predominant abiotic factor that affects plant growth and development. The present research examined at how drought stress affected the growth, physiological, and biochemical responses of Local and Markofana red pepper (Capsicum annum L.) cultivars. Five-week-old cultivars were exposed to well-watered, low, moderate, and severe drought conditions, kept at 100, 80, 60 and 40% of field capacity, respectively. Nine-week-old cultivars were sampled to analyze the effects of the stress on different parameters of both cultivars. Compared with the control group, drought stress caused a reduction in growth, physiological and biochemical parameters; nevertheless, adverse effects of the stress were more noticeable in the Local cultivar. Severe drought stress significantly reduced shoot length in Markofana (53.71 %) compared to the control group. Significant variation was observed in relative water content in the Local cultivar (20.26 %) exposed to drought. In the Local cultivar, the total chlorophyll content and chlorophyll fluorescence declined significantly by 77.28 and 3.33 %, respectively. Therefore, the cultivar Markofana was relatively less affected by drought stress. In general, these differences in cultivar responses to drought stress may aid in developing drought tolerance genotypes that can withstand drought stress conditions with minimal yield losses.