Morphological descriptors and male sterility in the genetic diversity of Chillies (Capsicum annuum L.)

Abstract

One hundred and ten accessions of chillies (Capsicum annuum L.) were evaluated for their male sterility and horticultural characteristics. The accessions were crossed with six sterile male chillies. Thirty-seven F1 hybrid seeds were grown to score the fertility of their pollen. They showed three groups of male sterility: eight F1 hybrids had fertile pollen, twenty-three F1 hybrids showed no pollen or very little sterile pollen and six F1 hybrids showed fertile pollen on some plants and no pollen on different plants of the same hybrid. Therefore, male parents should have N/S MsMs, N msms and N/S Msms respectively. Some of the N/S MsMs and N msms accessions had excellent horticultural characteristics and could be used as C lines and maintainers in F1 hybrid seed production. Eighteen accessions were selected from the germplasm based on their horticultural characteristics. Among these accessions, seven accessions were green chillies, three accessions were white chillies and eight accessions were large fruit chillies. Six accessions of selected green chillies were grown for the purpose of comparison with two control varieties. Fruit yields and horticultural characteristics were recorded.