MASAL SELECTION IN SWEET CREOLE PEPPER (Capsicum annuum L.)

Abstract

Sweet Creole peppers are conserved and exploited mainly by traditional farmers in southeastern México. The objective of this study was to evaluate the response to mass selection in agronomic and yield characters of experimental varieties of sweet pepper (C. annuum L.). The original populations C0 (D-209 and D-210) were evaluated, and selection cycles C1, C2 and C3 of each one, from June to November 2015, in the localities of Conkal, Yucatán, and Ejido Juan Sarabia, Othón P. Blanco, Quintana Roo, México. The trial was under a complete random block design with three repetitions, experimental unit of 40 plants, distributed into two simple furrows, with distance between furrows of 1.5 m and 0.3 m between plants.
Fruit yield (g plant^-1), individual weight of the fruit (g), number of fruits per plant, days until the beginning of flowering (d), length and diameter of the fruit (cm), were evaluated. A response to the selection in characteristics of agronomic importance was found in sweet pepper; the variety D-210 showed higher gain for yield per plant (9.6 %) and individual fruit weight (3.3 %) per selection cycle, while D-209 presented gains per selection cycle for the same characters of 7.3% and 0.3%, respectively.
For most of the variables, no statistically significant differences were found between selection cycles, however, numerically a slight increase in the variables evaluated was observed, generating a better performance.