Full Length Research Paper
Manas Denre, P. K. Bandopadhya
Abstract
In order to study the changes in some biochemical characteristics in response to foliar applications of chelator [humic acid: HA1 (0%) and HA2 (0.05%)] and micronutrients [manganese: Mn1 (0%); Mn2 (0.05%) and molybdenum: Mo1 (0%); Mo2 (0.01%)] in green pungent pepper cv. Bullet (Capsicum annum L.), a pot experiment in factorial randomized block design with three replications was conducted in the net house of Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur, Nadia, West Bengal and India. In this experiment, we analyzed some carbohydrate constituents, non enzymatic antioxidants, enzymatic antioxidants and total antioxidant activity. Obtained results show that the highest values of reducing sugar, total sugar and starch were exhibited by applications of HA2Mn2, HA1Mn2 and HA2Mo2, respectively. The ascorbic acid contents significantly increased in treatments of HA2 and Mn2. The highest value of total phenol content was obtained by application of HA2Mo1, while there was significant increase in the application of HA2, HA2Mn2 and HA2Mo2 in the case of free phenol. The highest value of carotene content was obtained by foliar application of HA2Mn2, whereas in the case of capsaicin content, there was significant increase in all treatments, except Mo application alone. The highest activity of peroxidase (POD), polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and catalase (CAT) were exhibited by the treatments HA2Mo2, HA2Mo1 and HA2Mo2, respectively. The total antioxidant activity was expressed as molybdate reducing antioxidant power (MRAP). The MRAP values were increased significantly by the foliar application of HA2. Total phenol, free phenol, capsaicin, polyphenol oxidase and total antioxidant activity had a significant positive association with ascorbic acid. Based on principal component analysis and average values, foliar application of HA2Mn2 and HA2Mo2 had good performers with respect to all variables, which may bring about the proper value addition in quality of green pungent pepper by enhancing the carbohydrate constituents, antioxidant constituents and antioxidant activities.