Breeding potential of sweet pepper genotypes involving different fruit colours and shapes using multivariate analysis

The study was undertaken to characterize and determine the genetic divergence of 21 sweet peppers genotypes having different fruit colours and shapes. High Shanon-Wiener diversity index with an overall mean of 70.71 % confirmed the existence of diversity among the studied genotypes. Fruits started developing colours in 19 to 68 days after anthesis depending on the genotype. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean was observed for all the traits except days to first harvest, revealing additive genetic control of most traits. Number of fruits/plant and fruit weight were identified as important selection indices for yield improvement. Sweet pepper genotypes could be grouped into 5 clusters which do not represent places of origin indicating genotypes in a cluster were geographically diverse; genotypes obtained from the same region were genetically different. The principal components, β-carotene content, number of fruits/plant, lycopene content of fruit and average fruit weight, had eigen values >1 and together accounted for 100% of total variation.Based on multivariate analysis and average performance, genotypes ‘C/4’ (Red Group 42A, blocky), ‘8/4’ (Orange Red Group 34A, elongate), ‘Arya’ (Red Group 45A, blocky), ‘Baby Bell’ (Red Group 42A, blocky), ‘BC CAP Purple’ (Purple Group N77A, blocky), ‘BC CAP Yellow’ (Yellow Orange Group 17A, blocky) and ‘BC CAP White’ (Green white Group 157 C, blocky) were identified as good donors and could be utilized in future breeding.