Strategies in pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) hybrid breeding

The production of doubled haploid plants has become a key tool in advanced plant breeding. Plant breeders are increasingly using this system in their mainstream pure-line programs to reduce the number of years needed from crosses to commercial cultivar registration. In laboratory of Medimat Ltd. over the past 15 years there have been tested more than 3600 different genotypes originating from Hungarian sweet pepper types (Cecei, tomato-shaped, apple-shaped, white blocky, light green and dark green blocky, green spice), Hungarian spice pepper genotypes, Dutch blocky types, Spanish types (Dolce Italiano, Lamuyo, red blocky) and Turkish types (e.g., Dolma, Charliston) and produced high amount homozygote breeding lines using in vitro anther and microspore culture. When doubled haploid (DH) technology has been combined with marker-based pre-selection it provided an exceptionally efficient solution for hybrid pepper resistance breeding (e.g., TMV, TSWV, Powdery Mildew, Xanthomonas, nematodes).