NITROGEN USE EFFICIENCY AND YIELD IN RESPONSE GRAFT BELL PEPPER CULTIVARS

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to evaluate the performance of nitrogen (N) efficient use by ‘Fascinato’ (F), ‘Jannette’ (J), ‘Orangela’ (O), and ‘Sweet’ (S) cultivars grafted onto ‘Terrano’ (T) and ‘Robusto’ (R) rootstocks. Such evaluation was achieved by analyses of physiological and biochemical variables involved in N metabolism between grafted and ungrafted plants. Our findings point out that grafted ‘Fascinato’ cultivar (F/T) registered greatest relative leaf chlorophyll content, total chlorophyll concentration, a higher NR activity than did graft ‘Janette’ cultivar (J/T). In addition, these results reveal high significance with the interaction variety*date for these variables (relative leaf Chl, total Chl and NR activity), during the months of fruit yield of grafted bell pepper cultivars. This situation suggest than the effect of grafting under the increased of crop yield depend on the type of variety, as resulted with grafted ‘Fascinato’ cultivar.