Evaluation studies of hot pepper hybrids (Capsicum annuum L.) for yield and quality characters

Abstract

Chilli is the most important worldwide grown and consumed vegetable and spice because of its colour, taste, pungency, flavor and aroma. Hybridization has assumed commercial dimensions in numerous vegetable crops. Hot pepper offers great scope for improvement through this method. Diallel mating design is useful to select a suitable cross combination from large number of germplasm. Hence, present study was carried out to find out degree of heterosis in chilli hybrids. Six homozygous inbreds of hot pepper viz., Arka Lohit, K 1, LCA 334, LCA 625, PKM 1 and Pusa Jwala were crossed in June 2013 by making direct and reciprocal crosses for yield and quality aspects at the Department of Vegetable Crops, HC&RI, TNAU, India. From the present study, the hybrids were selected on the basis of high per se performance and heterosis. Marked heterosis was observed for all the ten characters studied. Thus, the potential hybrids viz., LCA 625 × K 1, PKM 1 × LCA 625, Pusa Jwala × PKM 1, Pusa Jwala × K 1, K 1 × Arka Lohit and Arka Lohit × LCA 334 were identified for number of fruits, dry pod weight, fruit quality and high yield. These F1 hybrids could be tested in different seasons over different locations for assessing their stability for high yield and quality. The hybrids LCA 625 × K 1, K 1 × Arka Lohit and Pusa Jwala × PKM 1 could be particularly exploited for dry pod yield, since they also had improved economic traits besides good fruit quality parameters. The best hybrids might be utilized for further chilli improvement programme.

Keywords

• dry pod
• hot pepper
• heterosis
• quality
• yield