Heterosis in chilli (Capsicum annum L.)

Abstract

An experiment was laid out in 1979 at the Department of Agricultural Botany, College of Agriculture, Vellayani to study the heterosis in Capsicum annum L. Nine parents and 36 F1 hybrids were compared. Eighteen economic attributes including vitamin A, vitamin C, capsaicin and oleoresin content were studied. All the characters under investigation manifested heterosis over midparental values though there was wide variation for different traits in different cross combinations. Maximum heterosis was noticed for number of primary bradches and vitamin C content. A comparison of average heterosis for various characters revealed that number of secondary branches topped the list followed by vitamin C, capsaicin content and number of primary branches. The studies identified two promising hybrids with desirable attributes namely Purple Round x Vellanotchi and Pant C1 x Purple Cluster. Negative heterosis was noticed for two important economic attributes namely number of days taken for blooming and number of seeds per fruit. For nutritive and quality characters very little expression of hybrid vigour in vitamin A content was noticed. However, there was considerable manifestation of hybrid vigour in vitamin C and oleoresin content.