Rendimento da pimenta cayenne em função de diferentes tensões de água no solo

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of different soil water tensions at different phenological stages (vegetative and reproductive) on Cayenne pepper cultivated in greenhouse and with drip irrigation. A completely randomized design was used, using four soil water tensions (20, 40, 60 e 120 kPa) as treatments with four replications, in two experiments (1 e 2), related to the phenological stages (vegetative and reproductive), respectively. The higher values of fruits mean weight per plant were obtained with 20 kPa soil water tension, being 1,936.83 and 2,091.59 g plant-1 and the yield coefficients obtained were 0.81 and 1.01, for vegetative and reproductive stages, respectively. It was concluded that the crop yield presented inversely proportional behavior to the soil water tension, and the 20 kPa tension showed most appropriate to promote the irrigation on the studied stages. The yield coefficients identified the reproductive stage as the most sensitive to the water stress.