Compatibility and reciprocal effect in intra and interspecific crosses of ornamental pepper

Abstract

The hybridization is important to plant evolution providing new genetic combination and to promote speciation. The goal of this work was to evaluate the cross compatibility in Capsicum genus. For this diallel were used eight parents belonging to the Germplasm Bank of Centro de Ciências Agrárias/Universidade Federal da Paraíba. These parents were Capsicum annuum (UFPB 01, UFPB 77.1, UFPB 77.2, UFPB 132, UFPB 134 e UFPB 137), C. baccatum (UFPB 72) C. chinense (UFPB 128). The interspecific crosses that showed high percentages of fruits and seeds were C. annuum x C. baccatum: UFPB 01 x UFPB 72, UFPB 134 x UFPB 72, UFPB77.1 x UFPB72, UFPB 137 x UFPB 72 and UFPB 77.2 x UFPB 72. The reciprocal crosses between C. baccatum x C. annuum (UFPB 72 x UFPB 01 e UFPB 01 x UFPB 72 = 53%) showed high fruit set. There was no compatibility between C. baccatum x C. chinense but their reciprocal cross C. chinense x C. baccatum showed 50 % of fruit set.