Heterosis for Fruit Yield and Related Horticultural Traits in Bell Pepper

Abstract

Heterosis is the increase of size, yield, and vigor through cross-breeding rather than interbreeding; without increases there is no heterosis. Heterosis has a slightly more extensive coverage than hybrid vigor; that is, though all hybrid vigor is heterosis, not all heterosis can be with equal propriety termed hybrid vigor. Heterosis breeding is a potential method to achieve improvement in production and productivity of bell pepper that otherwise cannot be achieved through existing traditional methods. A study of heterosis in 24 bell pepper hybrids developed through Line × Tester mating design involving the fully inbred lines, ‘Kandaghat Selection’, ‘EC-464115’, ‘EC-464107’, ‘HC-201’, ‘AC-48’, ‘SKAU-SP-613-1’, ‘PBC-631’, and ‘SKAU-SP-633-1’ and the testers ‘California Wonder’, ‘Yolo Wonder’, and ‘Solan Bharpoor’ was carried out at the Vegetable Experimental Farm of CSK Himachal Pradesh Agriculture Univ., Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India, during the summer rainy seasons of 2007 and 2008 (February to August). Heterosis was studied for the quantitative traits days to 50% flowering, days to first harvest, plant height, harvest duration, fruit yield per plant, fruit per plant, marketable fruit per plant, fruit length, fruit width, pericarp thickness, average fruit weight, and lobes per fruit. Among the traits, fruit per plant exhibited maximum heterosis over standard check ‘Aishwarya’ followed by marketable fruit per plant, harvest duration, and fruit yield per plant. Heterosis for yield was generally accompanied by heterosis of yield components. On the basis of heterosis and mean performance, ‘EC-464107’ × ‘Yolo Wonder’ was the best cross-combination followed by ‘Kandaghat Selection’ × ‘Solan Bharpoor’, ‘SKAU-SP-633-1’ × ‘Yolo Wonder’, ‘AC-48’ × ‘Solan Bharpoor’, and ‘EC-464115’ × ‘California Wonder’ for fruit yield per plant. These crosses also had high heterosis for most of the component traits. These hybrids offer high scope for the exploitation of heterosis. These cross-combinations can also be released as hybrids after further field testing.