Abstract:
Capsicum is widely grown as an
essential spice crop in Sri Lanka. The existing
germplasms of Capsicum conserved at Plant
Genetic Resource Centre (PGRC), Gannoruwa
were initially identified as two species, Capsicum
annuum, and Capsicum frutescens, instead, it is
hypothesized that there may be additional
genotypes within the existing germplasm
collections. Hence, the present study was focused
on evaluating twelve Capsicum accessions and to
characterize morphologically including 24
qualitative and seven quantitative traits to assess
the genetic diversity among plants. The
experiments were carried out at the open field and
protected house of PGRC, Gannoruwa by
randomized complete block design with four
replicates. Morphological characters were
analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and
multivariate methods. Significant variance among
genotypes was obtained for most of the
quantitative characteristics (p<0.05). Early
flowering (41d) and fruiting (69d) was observed
in accessions C-2018-12-232, NM-9-3-R1, NM-6-
2-R2-B, and ACC# 1249B, while the remainder
accessions exhibited late flowering (>47d) and
harvest (>75d) nature respectively. Principal
component (PC) analysis explained more than
73.12 % of total variability for the first three
components. PC1 was highly positively correlated
with seed beak prominence, corolla color, and
seed shape, while PC2 was highly correlated
positively with fruit color, shape at the blossom
end, and fruit positions. Hence this study
attempted to develop a species identification key
for chili species by employing morphological
traits, though seed shape can be considered as a
power tool. Moreover, the dendrogram confirmed
that the germplasms resemble into three chili
species as C. annuum, C. chinense, and C.
frutescens.
