Impact of saline water irrigation plus potassium sulphate application on growth and yield potential of pepper plants

The aim of this research was to investigate the impact of different saline water irrigation levels plus potassium sulphate (K₂SO₄) application on growth and yield potential of pepper plants. The treatments consisted of three saline water irrigation levels (2.5, 4 and 6 dS m⁻¹) and tab water as control. Each treatment was supplemented with different levels of K₂SO₄ at (zero, 2 and 4 gm K₂SO₄ per plant), except for the control. Plant observations were collected to evaluate plant length, fruit number per plant, fruit yield per plant, stem water potential, plant transpiration, photosynthetic rate and dry matter of shoots and roots. Results of this study indicated that K₂SO₄ application played a positive impact on alleviating salinity stress and improving plant growth parameters mainly under saline water irrigation levels of 2.5 and 4 dS m⁻¹ plus 2 gm K₂SO₄ compared to saline water irrigation treatments which were not supplemented with K₂SO₄.