Water deficit and consecutive droughts currently caused most of the world facing water crisis condition. In order to save water consumption in the agricultural sector, new technologies and several materials are used. One of these materials is superabsorbent polymers which are capable of absorbing high amounts of precipitation or irrigation and make them available for the plants use. Since the application of superabsorbent has significant impact on improving the morphological and phytochemical characteristics and has not been investigated on hot pepper till now, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of superabsorbent polymer (A200) under drought conditions on some of phytochemical characteristics of hot pepper (Capsicum frutescence) such as: Vitamin C, Total Soluble Solids, Ion Leakage, Chlorophyll Content and Water Productivity.
This Research was carried out in the research greenhouse of the department of horticulture at Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University. Mentioned research was planned in a factorial based on a randomized complete design with three irrigation regimes (50, 75, and 100% of water requirement) and four levels of superabsorbent polymer (0, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3% weight) in four replications. Plants were planted in 30 cm diameter and a height of 35 cm pots. A total of 4 TDR were installed in the root effective depth (18 cm) treated with full irrigation surface (water requirement of 100%) and different levels of superabsorbent. A digital Reflectometer device was used to calculate the total soluble solids (TSS). The method of Luts et al. (1996) was used to determine the ionic leakage. Chlorophyll a, b and total were determined based on methods of Pora et al. (1989). Vitamin C was determined via Saini et al. (2001) method. The fresh weight of each harvested fruit weighted by digital scale and were recorded as total fruit fresh weight per plant at the end of the experiment.
The interaction effect of irrigation levels and superabsorbent levels on ionic leakage was significant at 1 or 5 percent level (p