## 2 Materials and Methods
For aromatic compound composition analyses, the Solid-phase micro-extraction (SPME) method was employed: 5 g of a homogenized pepper sample was taken and placed in 20 ml vials, the lids were closed, and the sample was mixed in the vortex for 2 s. The fiber (2 cm, DVB/CAR/PDMS, Supelco, Bellefonte, PA, USA), previously conditioned at 200 \({}^{\circ}\)C for 20 min GC-MS, was attached to the vial at 55 \({}^{\circ}\)C for 30 min. At the end of the period, the fiber was injected into GC-MS automatically, and analyses were performed. Aroma analysis was performed using Shimadzu, model AOC-6000 GC-MS. The device used a Restek RTX-5 MS (30 m \(\times\) 0.25 mm \(\times\) 0.25 \(\upmu\)m) column. The method applied by [PERSON] et al. (2018) was changed depending on the nesting of the peaks [50]. The following parameters were used for the analysis: injection temperature: 250 \({}^{\circ}\)C, pressure: 90.0 kPa, column flow rate: 1.61 mL/min, column temperature 1: 40 \({}^{\circ}\)C, standby time: 3 min, rate of increase: 4 \({}^{\circ}\)C/min, column temperature 2:240 \({}^{\circ}\)C, holding time at final temperature: 5 min, total flow 20.7 mL/min, partition ratio: 1/10. The C7-C30 alkane series was injected into the device using the determined method, and the RI calculation was performed. Peaks were defined in the FFNSC (natural and synthetic flavor and fragrance components) library to determine the peaks. The volatile aroma components in capia pepper samples were determined by similarity of 90% and above from the library. They were defined in terms of the percentage of the areas of the identified peaks in the total area. Heavy metal analyses (Cd, Pb, Mn, Ni, Co) were performed using the Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) method. The titradable acidity in homogenized samples was determined through titration and monitored using a pH meter. To achieve this, a specific amount of the sample underwent titration using a 0.1 N standardized NaOH solution, guided by a pH meter until reaching a pH of 8.1. The titration acidity was calculated using tartaric acid as 'g/100 mL' [51]. A total of 5 grams of pepper samples were ground and homogenized for pH measurement by mixing with 50 mL of distilled water. The pH of the resulting mixture was measured using a pH meter calibrated with buffer solutions in the range of 4.0 to 7.0 [52]. The Folin-Ciocalteu method was employed to quantify the total phenolic compound content in the samples. This analytical approach is based on reducing phenolic compounds using the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent in a basic environment and then assessing the resulting blue color using a spectrophotometer. In the analysis, the translucent supernatant was used to determine the overall phenolic content after homogenate preparation. Briefly, a 2 mL sample was mixed with 10 mL of 2 N (10%) Folin-Ciocalteu reagent and incubated for 3 min in darkness. Then, 8 mL of 0.7 M sodium carbonate was added. Following a  
Figure 1: Total and net irrigation water requirements throughout the capia pepper growth period. 2-h incubation at room temperature in the absence of light, the absorbance of the reaction mixture was measured at 765 nm using a spectrophotometer. The results are expressed as milligrams of gallic acid equivalents per kilogram of fresh pepper weight, following the method outlined by [PERSON] and [PERSON] in 1965 [53].