Effect of Partial Root-Zone Drip Irrigation on Hot Pepper

Water shortage is one of the most important factors affecting agricultural production all over the world. New irrigation strategies must be established in order to use the limited water resources more effectively and efficiently. Deficit irrigation (DI) has been developed for more than 20 years and is able to increase both irrigation water use efficiency and crop water use efficiency of many crop species. Partial root-zone drip irrigation (PRDI) also known as partial root-zone drying is a further development of deficit irrigation. The partial root-zone drip approach is to use irrigation to alternately wet and dry (at least) two spatially prescribed parts of the plant root system. This new irrigation strategy allows the exploitation of drought induced Abscesic acid (ABA)-based root-to-shoot signaling system to water saving. These irrigation techniques particularly PRDI are promising for application in drought-prone regions for water saving. In this paper the (PRDI) is detailed and result reported on hot pepper. Partial root-zone drip irrigation was tested to investigate effect of water use efficiency on growth and yield of hot pepper in a greenhouse condition.