Salinity Induced Alterations on Chile-Peppers at Various Growth Stages.

Salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses for crop production especially in arid regions of southwestern US characterized by low rainfall, high evapotranspiration and saline irrigation water. With persistent drought, the fresh water availability for irrigation is declining and saline groundwater is increasingly used for irrigation. Chile pepper is an important cash crop of Southern New Mexico. In this greenhouse study, five chile pepper varieties were tested for germination, emergence and vegetative growth which were irrigated with natural saline groundwater and concentrate coming out of the reverse osmosis (RO) system. For germination study, five levels of salinity treatments were used including tap water of EC 0.6 (control), well water of EC 3 and 6, and RO concentrate of EC 8 and 10 dS/m. For emergence investigation, natural water ECs selected for irrigation were 0.6, 3, 5, and 7.5 dS/m. Results showed no statistical significant differences in mean germination time and percentage among various saline treatments. However, pooling all the data, mean germination time increased with increasing irrigation water salinity. Results also showed a significant decrease in emergence percentage and an increase in mean emergence time with increasing irrigation water salinity. Salinity effects were also determined on vegetative growth stages and growth parameters like plant height, dry weights, fruit number per plant and fruit weights and showed significant reductions with increase in irrigation water salinity. More experiments (second year) are in progress and results will be included in the presentations. Increase in germination time and emergence time and decrease in emergence percentage and vegetative growth could have severe implications on sustaining chile pepper production in semi-arid New Mexico.