Heritability of morpho-agronomic traits in ornamental pepper

Abstract

This study was conducted to identify the allelic interactions and genetic effects involved in genetic control of quantitative traits in Capsicum annuum. Six generations (P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1 and BC2) were used to study the variances, means and allelic interactions of 16 quantitative traits evaluated. The additive part of the phenotypic variance found for plant height, number of peppers per plant, days to flowering and days to fruiting lead to the conclusion that phenotypic selection in the F2 generation are likely effective in obtaining genetic gains. According to the reduced model, the traits of canopy width, fruit width and number of seeds per fruit were not influenced by epistatic effects, but only by additive and dominant effects, which allows selection of superior individuals in segregating generations or improvement of these traits by means of hybridization.