Generation mean analysis for yield and contributing traits in sweet pepper

To study the genetics of yield and contributing traits, six generations (P₁, P₂, F₁, B₁, B₂ and F₂) of six crosses evolved by utilizing four parents (PBC-631, IHR-546, California Wonder and Yolo Wonder) were evaluated in a Randomized Block Design with three replications at the experimental farm of Department of Vegetable Science and Floriculture, CSK HPKV, Palampur. Sufficient genetic variability was generated through hybridization for all the traits studied. The presence of dominance components for yield per plant in all the crosses along with complementary type of interaction in IHR-546 x YW suggested the exploitation of heterosis breeding for improving yield per plant. Similarly, positive dominance components were recorded in most of the cross combinations for number of fruits per plant, which further indicate the importance of exploiting hybrid vigour for this trait. However, most of the crosses had negative additive component and positive additive x additive [i] gene interactions suggesting delaying the selection for improving average fruit weight. In the present study, the nature and magnitude of gene effect varied with different crosses for most of the traits. Hence, specific breeding strategy has to be adopted for a particular cross to get improvement. In some crosses, inbreds can be developed through hybridization following the pedigree method of selection. In other crosses, though high magnitude of dominance gene effects and dominance × dominance interactions were present, however, it is difficult to exploit them due to the presence of duplicate epistasis. In such cases, some form of recurrent selection like diallel selective or biparental mating can be effective.