STUDIES ON WATER CONSUMPTION OF SWEET PEPPER PLANT UNDER PLASTIC HOUSES

The experiments were carried out at the Kassasin plastic houses site, Ismailia Governorate, Egypt for two successive seasons (1988 and 1989) to evaluate two methods of determining water consumption for sweet pepper plants, based on radiation and Class A pan. The results indicated that plant height, leaf number, leaf area, leaf area index, fresh and dry weights of plants, early and total yields of sweet pepper plants were significantly higher when the radiation method was used for determination of water consumption compared to using Class A pan method. Electrical conductivity for soil solution, and soil, air and leaf temperature were increased when the Class A pan method was used. Soil moisture was higher when using the radiation method. The water use efficiency was higher by using the Class A pan method compared to the radiation method due to the fact that pan evaporation differs from one region to another while radiation is almost constant throughout Egypt, it was concluded that it is possible to use pan evaporation to estimate water consumption of pepper provided that a suitable leaching fraction is included.