Author(s):

Minakshi Thakur, Sonia Sood and Nivedita Gupta

Abstract: The present investigation was carried out to generate information on variability for quantitative and quality traits in bell pepper (<em>Capsicum annuum</em> L. var. <em>grossum</em> Sendt.). The experiment material consisted of 46 genotypes of bell pepper that were evaluated in randomized complete block design during <em>kharif</em>, 2016. The observations were recorded on days to 50 per cent flowering, days to first picking, plant height (cm), primary branches per plant, harvest duration (days), fruit length (cm), fruit width (cm), pericarp thickness (mm), lobes per fruit, average fruit weight (g), fruit yield per plant (g), fruits per plant, marketable fruit yield per plant (g), marketable fruits per plant, capsanthin content (ASTA units), TSS (ºBrix) and ascorbic acid content (mg/100g). Significant differences were observed among the genotypes for all the traits, indicated presence of sufficient variation for all the traits. Among all, genotypes DPCBWR-14-39 (644.29 g), DPCBWR-14-36 (610.17 g), DPCBWR-14-31 (601.96 g), DPCBWR-14-35 (517.88 g), DPCBWR-14-11 (510.34 g), DPCBWR-14-7 (510.14 g) and DPCBWR-14-29 (499.47 g) were the highest yielders and these were also among the top genotypes for economic traits <em>viz</em>., marketable fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant, fruits per plant and average fruit weight. The PCV was invariably higher than their corresponding GCV for most of the characters, indicated close association between phenotype and genotype. High PCV as well as GCV was observed for fruit yield per plant, fruits per plant, marketable fruit yield per plant, marketable fruits per plant, capsanthin content and ascorbic acid depicting the presence of substantial variability and would respond better to selection. High heritability alongwith high genetic advance was observed for fruit yield per plant, fruits per plant, marketable fruit yield per plant, marketable fruits per plant, capsanthin content, TSS and ascorbic acid, respectively revealing the importance of additive gene action for the inheritance of these traits, and further improvement could be done through phenotypic selection.

Pages: 66-73  |  1579 Views  386 Downloads

Download (886KB)