Screening Pepper Genotypes to Obtain Tolerant Rootstocks to Salt and Water Stress: Physiological and Agronomical Responses of the Grafted Plants

Abstract

Noviembre 2015 Programa de Doctorado en Recursos y Tecnologías Agrarias I | SUMMARYPepper is a vegetable of extraordinary economic and social importance in our country. Unfortunately, the persistent exploitation of the land, the monoculture and the intensification of production processes, lead to the development of soil diseases. This coupled with the abiotic stress, mainly the salinity of waters and soil, suboptimal temperatures and water stress, can induce the appearance of physiological disorders in peppers as the Blossom-end rot (BER) and cracking or cracked, induce plant senescence and decrease not only production, but also the quality of the product. Salinity and water shortages are two among the biggest environmental problems that crops have to face in the Mediterranean area. A way to overcome the stresses under the prism of an ecological or integrated crop management, is the use of grafted plants as adaptation strategy. Although there has been remarkable progress in this technique (mainly in tomato, melon, watermelon), in the cultivation of pepper use remains rare. In this Doctoral thesis several pepper genotypes have been selected through different physiological parameters which indicate tolerance to salt and water stress. Commercial cultivars were grafted onto the selected genotypes and were grown under water stress, salinity and control conditions studying several physiological, agronomic responses and the interaction rootstock/scion.The results obtained concluded that genotypes selected and used as rootstocks improved commercial varieties to salt and water stress tolerance, both in terms of performance (commercial production) compared to other commercial characters and variety without grafting. Different physiological mechanisms explain the tolerance to stress, such as the ability to maintain the water potential through an osmotic adjustment, stimulation of the antioxidant system, exclusion II | or retention of toxic ions (Na + and Cl -) in saline in the roots and the maintenance of photosynthesis which allows to maintain the metabolic functions of grafted plants and production. III | RESUMENEl pimiento es una hortaliza de extraordinaria importancia económica y social en nuestro país. Lamentablemente, la persistente explotación del suelo, el monocultivo y la intensificación de los procesos de producción, conducen al desarrollo de enfermedades del suelo. Esto unido a los estreses abióticos, principalmente la salinidad de las aguas y del suelo, temperaturas subóptimas y estrés hídrico, puede inducir la aparición de fisiopatias en el pimiento como el Blossom-end rot (BER) y cracking o rajado, inducir senescencia vegetal y disminuir no solo la producción, sino también la calidad del producto.La salinidad y la escasez de agua son unos los mayores problemas medio ambientales a los que tienen que hacer frente los cultivos en el área Mediterránea. Un modo de sortear los estreses bajo el prisma de un manejo integrado o ecológico del cultivo, es la utilización de plantas injertadas como estrategia de adaptació...