Morpho-physiochemical responses of Capsicum chinense Jacq. (Bhut Jolokia) under different abiotic stresses

Climate change has become a major threat to several plant species, including crop plants. In the environment, this is directly connected with different abiotic factors like drought, heat, low temperature, soil acidity, salinity, etc. Capsicum chinense Jacq. (Bhut jolokia) is a significant economic crop that possesses medicinal values, which is widely consumed worldwide. As, the species is susceptible to various abiotic stresses, the present study was conducted to understand the morphological and physiological changes in response to drought, submergence, heat, cold and soil acidity as stress conditions in the sapling stage. Under stress conditions, physiological parameters such as relative water content, chlorophyll content and various photosynthetic parameters (fv/fm, ETR, Y(II) etc.) were reduced drastically with respect to the severity of the stress conditions. The increase in MDA content and lipid peroxidation were quantified in both leaf and root tissues, which portray in reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. In addition, the species could not recover after heat stress for a longer duration as a result of complete tissue damage. Also, we could not retrieve the information from complete submergence stress as the species did not survive the stress condition. Production of ROS was also characterized by different histochemical tests in both leaf and root tissues. Under mild stress conditions, the species utilizes its tolerance ability to counter the effects and damages caused by individual abiotic stresses with an increasing rate of its survivability.

This study revealed various stress responses and tolerance ability in bhut jolokia under different abiotic stresses based on the morphological and physiological parameters which will be further useful for studying the changing adaptability traits with respect to climate change.