Drought and salt stress tolerance in hot pepper (capsicum annum)

Growth of hot pepper under saline conditions can be best evaluated by the relative growth rate, relative leaf water contents and carotenoids levels. Moreover, under salt stress, reduced pepper plant growth is primarily due to osmotic stress rather than ionic toxicity, because pepper is regarded as Na+ excluder. Furthermore, carotenoid contents can be used to screen hot pepper germplasm for salt tolerance. It is suggested that use of landraces could be more appropriate than the wild species because indigenous germplasm has potential to perform better than the exotic cultivars due to their adaptive-ness.