Impact of colored water pillows on yield and water productivity of pepper under greenhouse conditions

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of colored water pillows on yield and water productivity of two pepper cultivars under greenhouse conditions in 2018 and 2019. Irrigation treatments were arranged as: drip without mulching, black water pillow, blue water pillow, drip+black mulching and drip+blue mulching. The first year, total plant water consumption amount was about 421 mm for drip and 301 mm for the other treatments and respectively as 439 and 305 mm in the second year. In both years, approximately 38% less water was applied in water pillow irrigation treatments. Significant differences were not observed in yields of water pillow and drip+mulching treatments, but drip irrigation treatments were found to be significantly different from the other treatments in both years. For Captain capia and Yellow Stone chili pepper cultivars, as the average of two years, the highest yields were obtained from water pillow treatments as 39.65 and 32.3 t ha−1, respectively, and the lowest yields were obtained from the drip irrigation treatments as 28.9 and 22.7 t ha−1. There were significant differences in irrigation water productivity (IWP) and water productivity (WP) values of drip irrigation and the other treatments. For Captain capia and Yellow Stone chili pepper, as the average of two years, the highest IWP values were obtained from the water pillow treatments as 121.3 and 96.8 kg ha−1 mm−1, and the lowest IWP value was obtained from the drip irrigation treatments as 65 kg ha−1 mm−1. Similarly, the highest WP values were obtained from the water pillow treatments as 129.5 and 103.25 kg ha−1 mm−1, and the lowest WP value was obtained from the drip treatments as 52.5 kg ha−1 mm−1. A great energy saving was achieved with water pillow method. The amount of energy used in water pillow was about 2% and 5% of the energy used in drip and drip+mulching treatments, respectively. In both years, water pillow and drip+mulching treatments had higher soil temperatures than drip treatment as 1.3 °C. Weeds were not encountered in water pillows and drip+mulching treatments. In conclusion, present findings revealed that water pillows were clearly superior to drip irrigation. Although yield values of water pillows and drip+mulching treatments were not significantly different, no extra energy demand, inherent mulching characteristics and quite low labor costs have made water pillows more advantages over drip+mulching treatments.