Screening for bacterial wilt resistance of bell pepper under sick field conditions and morphological characterization

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out on 46 genotypes of bell pepper to study bacterial wilt resistant genotypes and their morphological characterization under natural sick field conditions at Palampur aiming at the development of high-yielding, bacterial wilt (Ralstonia solanacearum) resistant lines of bell pepper. Based upon the mean performance, genotypes DPCBWR-14-39, DPCBWR-14-36, DPCBWR-14-31, DPCBWR-14-35, DPCBWR-14-11, DPCBWR-14-7 and DPCBWR-14-29 were found to be top yielders and resistant to bacterial wilt disease. All the genotypes taken for study were found to be resistant and moderately resistant to bacterial wilt disease except DPCBWR-14-22, DPCBWR-14-23, DPCBWR-14-34, DPCBWR-14-37 and DPCBWR14–43. Bell pepper germplasm contained sufficient genetic variability and can be used for crop improvement. Coincidently, among the top five high yielding progenies most showed green group (GG), blocky fruit shape, pendent fruit position, cordate fruit shape at pedicel end and sunken fruit shape at blossom end. Thus, these genotypes can be further used for breeding programmes and can be directly used after multi-location testing as these possess inherent ability to high yielding alongwith bacterial wilt resistance.