MORPHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF PEPPER MUTANT LINES AND INFLUENCE OF THE VARIATION FACTORS ON VARIABILITY OF THE STUDIED CHARACTERS

Pepper fruit contain carotenoids, vitamins and other biological active substances which determine their health effect. The research work at the Maritsa Vegetable Crops Research Institute, Plovdiv is aimed to create lines, cultivars and hybrids with higher quality. During the period 2006–2007, ten pepper mutant genotypes used in -carotene breeding programme are investigated by plant and fruit quantitative characters on the experimental field at the Institute. Three of them possess red fruit in botanical maturity and the other ones, orange colored fruit. It is established that 1931 forming red fruit is characterized with optimal combining of the fruit traits which are important both for the producers and consumers. Breeding lines 1929 and 1930 which also have good fruit morphology that in combination with orange colour of the fruit makes them especially suitable to be included as parental components in future -carotene hybridization programmes. The influence of the variation sources – genotype, environment and the interaction genotype x environment – on the phenotypic manifestation of the plant and stem height, bifurcations from first order, fruit length and diameter, pericarp thickness and fruit weight is evaluated. The factors genotype and environment have no significant effect only on a number of the branches. The interaction genotype x environment has a proved impact on this character but does not influence on the fruit length. The genotype factor is prevailing on the fruit weight (43.25%), fruit diameter (35.66%) and plant height (34.24%). The influence of the environment dominates on the pericarp thickness (36.86%) and fruit length (26.45%).