COMBINING ABILITY AND HETEROSIS FOR FRUIT YIELD AND QUALITY IN MANZANO HOT PEPPER (Capsicum pubescens R & P) LANDRACES

Abstract

Hybridization as a method for plant breeding may create improved varieties with higher fruit yield and quality by taking advantage of the combining ability and heterosis between the crossed parents. Six landrace varieties (five collected in Mexico and one in Peru) of manzano hot pepper (Capsicum pubescens R & P) and all their possible direct single crosses were evaluated, for heterosis and general and specific combining abilities (GCA and SCA) for fruit yield and quality. Plants were grown under greenhouse conditions and drip irrigated with a complete nutrient solution. Analyses for GCA, SCA and heterosis were based on the Griffing’s fixed model of diallel design method II, and on analysis II of Gardner and Eberhart. Significant GCA effects were found for fruit yield, fruit volume, pericarp thickness, seed number and weight per fruit, and on locule number per fruit. The highest GCA values were registered in landrace ‘Puebla’. The highest heterosis relative to the best parent was found in the cross ‘Zongolica x Puebla’ for fruit yield (51 %), in ‘Peru x Chiapas’ for fruit volume (33 %), in ‘Puebla x Peru’ for seed number (22 %), and in ‘Puebla x Chiapas’ for seed weight (38 %) and locule number (18 %). These hybrids also showed high SCA values. ‘Puebla’ was the best landrace as a parent in hybrids. It had the highest frequency of high yielding hybrids with high fruit volume and pericarp thickness, compared with the other five landraces. Thus, hybridization can be a useful method for breeding manzano hot pepper to exploit combining abilities and heterosis.