ANTHOCYANIN CONTENT AND TOTAL PHENOLIC CONTENT OF FLOWERS AND LEAVES IN F₂ GENERATION ORNAMENTAL PEPPERS

Capsicum is a tropical genus with a large variety of flower and fruit. Several genes which control the green foliage were described. The purple and variegate foliage and flowers color are attractive to ornamental peppers. The goal of this work was to quantify the anthocyanin content and total phenolic of flowers and leaves in a F₂ segregate generation. For this, contrasting the basic population was separated in sub-classes: F_2.1 – white flower; F_2.2 – white flower with purple margin; F_2.3 – variegate white-purple flower; F_2.4 – purple flower; F_2.5 – deep purple flower. Then the F₂ seeds cultivar were grown in a greenhouse, and at the blooming stage, the flowers and leaves were collected and evaluated for anthocyanin and total phenolics content. Each sample was composed by flowers and leaves in five and eight replicates, respectively. The data were submitted to F test (p≤0.05) and the means were separated by Duncan multiple range test. There were no differences among treatments for flower anthocyanin, but they showed different contents for the flower total phenolics. The F_2.3 sub-class showed highest phenolic content. For the leaves, there were no significant differences (p≤0.05) among the treatments for total phenolics. For anthocyanin, F_2.2 was similar to F_2.3. F_2.4 showed highest anthocyanin levels. These results showed the great variability found at basic population. This could be used in an ornamental pepper breeding program