article · Plants
Sweet pepper plants subjected to salt stress experience significant physiological damage and reduced productivity. Exposure to saline conditions lowers relative water content, reduces chlorophyll levels, decreases essential nutrient uptake including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, and diminishes total fruit yield. Salinity also drives up cellular damage, marked by higher electrolyte leakage, lipid peroxidation, sodium accumulation and elevated levels of reactive oxygen species such as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide. Applying silicon directly to plant foliage counteracts these harmful effects across growing seasons. Foliar silicon treatments improve plant water status, restore chlorophyll concentrations, enhance mineral nutrition and increase overall fruit yield. Additionally, the treatment mitigates cellular stress by lowering lipid peroxidation, membrane leakage and levels of destructive reactive oxygen molecules in salt-affected sweet pepper crops.
Saline soils and salty irrigation water restrict crop productivity and threaten vegetable production in many agricultural regions. Demonstrating how simple foliar treatments such as silicon protect sweet pepper plants helps identify practical agronomic interventions to sustain crop growth, maintain fruit production and secure harvest yields in farming environments compromised by high salinity.
This research demonstrates an applied agronomic practice for sweet pepper growers and commercial greenhouse operators facing saline soil or irrigation water. Foliar silicon sprays provide a direct treatment to protect fruit yields and reduce salt-induced stress. Tested over two seasons with yield measured in tonnes per hectare, the approach appears applied and near to farm-level adoption, though commercial uptake may require standardising spray timings, concentrations and product formulations.
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Silicon is one of the most significant elements in plants under abiotic stress, so we investigated the role of silicon in alleviation of the detrimental effects of salinity at two concentrations (1500 and 3000 ppm sodium chloride) in sweet pepper plants in two seasons (2018 and 2019). Our results indicated that relative water content, concentrations of chlorophyll a and b, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium contents, number of fruits plant<sup>-1</sup>, fruit fresh weight plant<sup>-1</sup> (g) and fruit yield (ton hectare<sup>-1</sup>) significantly decreased in salt-stressed sweet pepper plants as compared to control plants. In addition, electrolyte leakage, proline, lipid peroxidation, superoxide (O<sub>2</sub><sup>-</sup>) and hydrogen peroxide (H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub>) levels, soluble sugars, sucrose, and starch content as well as sodium content significantly increased under salinity conditions. Conversely, foliar application of silicon led to improvements in concentrations of chlorophyll a and b and mineral nutrients, water status, and fruit yield of sweet pepper plants. Furthermore, lipid peroxidation, electrolyte leakage, levels of superoxide, and hydrogen peroxide were decreased with silicon treatments.
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DOI: 10.3390/plants9060733
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