EFFECT OF ORGANIC FERTILIZERS ON ALLEVIATE PEPPER (Capsicum annuum L.) PLANTS GROWN UNDER SALT STRESS

Abstract

This experiment was conducted at the vegetable field of Horticulture department, College of Agriculture, Baghdad University "Abu Ghraib" for two successive seasons 2013 and 2014 in order to study the effect of poultry manure of mitigating the impact of salt stress and its reflect on growth and yield of sweet pepper "California Wonder". A nested design with three replicates was adapted. The experiment included 12 treatments which is watering plants with three levels of irrigation wells water 1.9, 2.0 dS m-1 (for two seasons respectively), 3 and 5 dS m-1 of NaCl, with four fertilization treatments included control, recommended chemical fertilizers, poultry manure at 3% and 5% of soil volume. Least significant difference (LSD) at 1.15 probability was used to compare the means. The results of experiment showed that salinity caused decreasing in all studied parameters, while chemical fertilization with low level of irrigation water salinity of wells water was superior on all other treatments, it caused increasing in nutrient content K and P in leaves also increased chlorophyll content in leaves and leaves area, while poultry manure at 5% of soil size with wells water treatment caused increasing plant height, branches number, and dry weight of vegetative growth. Poultry manure was active by mitigating the impact of salt stress on plant it was superior by increasing all parameters on other treatments under the same salinity level.