ORNAMENTAL PEPPER BREEDING: COULD A CHILI BE A FLOWER ORNAMENTAL PLANT?

The chili peppers are best known by the range of their fruit shapes and colors. Despite their flowers show different colors, they are small, around 1 cm, to be attractive as an ornamental to consumers. The objective of this work was to evaluate six different F₂ families aiming to select plants with large flowers. For this, 36 plants of each family were sown in plastic pots with commercial substrate. The corolla length and petal width were evaluated. The experiment was carried out in a completely randomized design in a factorial scheme (6 x 36), with three replicates. The first factor was the six families and the second factor was the 36 plants within families. The data were submitted to analyses of variance and the means were grouped by Scott-Knott criteria (p≤0.01). There was interaction for both evaluated traits. Variation was detected between and within families. The 132 x 134 family showed flowers size up to 2.2 cm and petals up to 0.65 cm, contrasting with the average of 0.5 cm in the other evaluated F₂ plants. The flower length was twice longer than the length in normal ornamental chili peppers. It is possible to select for this trait and making the flower of Capsicum more attractive for commercial purpose. Breeders of the Federal University of Paraíba and Federal University of Viçosa are also working with the objective to select different flower color in this species.