Boyan Arnaoudov, Dima Markova and Yanina Arnaoudova
Agricultural Academy, Maritsa Vegetable Crops Research Institute, 4003 Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Arnaoudov, B., Markova, D. & Arnaoudova, Ya. (2020). Influence of the water deficit on growth indexes and pests infestation of pepper mutant lines. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 26 (5), 982–987
Scarcity of water is a severe environmental limit to plant productivity. The plants were grown in a glasshouse as a substrate culture with two watering regimes. The biometric values decrease as a result of a reduced in the water regime. That effect is mostly expressed in the mass of fruits of first quality, where it varies from 27.1% to 69.5%. The most sensitive to the water stress was line C45 and entirely the best tolerance had line C41. The average fruit mass and the fruit mass of the fruits from first quality weren’t influenced by reducing the water regime in line No.1928. During the vegetation, an attack of green peach aphid, thrips and cotton bollworm was observed. In full irrigation, there were no differences in thrips attack between pepper genotypes. In plants with reduced water regime, an increase in the density of the thrips was observed as the highest rate of infestation in line C45 was reported. The lowest percentage of damaged cotton bollworm fruits was observed in pepper genotype 1930 in both irrigation modes.