The Effect of Local Micro Organism and Mycorrhizal Fungi on Anatomical and Morphological Responses of Red Chili (Capsicum annuum L.) at Different Soil Water Level

Abstract

Red chilli as a vegetable commodity plays an important role for Indonesian people and its cultivation depends on the level of water availability, which is still a problem in certain area in Indonesia. This study aimed to describe the effect of local microorganism (LMO) concentration and different soil water levels on the anatomical and morphological responses of red chilli by adding the mycorrhizal fungi in all treatments during the cultivation. This experimental study used Randomized Block Design (RBD) with two factors, namely the concentration of LMO (0mL/L, 25 mL/L, 50 mL/L, 75 mL/L) and different soil water levels based on field capacity measurement (100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%) with 3 replications. The parameters obtained included anatomical parameters (stomatal density and trichome density) and morphological parameters (plant height, leaf number, wet biomass, root length, mycorrhizal infection and relative water content of leaves). Data obtained from this study was in the form of morphological response of red chilli and anatomic parameters. Data obtained in this study were analyzed by two-ways ANAVA and continued by the Duncan test. The results showed that there was an effect of LMO concentration and different soil water levels by the addition of mycorrhizal fungi on plant height, wet biomass, relative water content of leaves with the highest effect of LMO concentration at 75 ml/L with water level of 25%. In the stomatal density, the LMO concentration and water levels that significantly effect was 25 ml/L with water level of 25%. Although there was no significant effect on leaf number, root length, mycorrhizal infection and trichome density parameters due to the treatments. These findings recommended that red chilli could be cultivated better in the interaction of 75 mL/L of LMO concentration and soil water level of 25%.