Evaluation of Chilli (Capsicum annuum L.

) Genotypes for Heat Tolerance Navjyot Kaur*, M S Dhaliwal1, Saalesh Jindal1, Neena Chawla1 and Parjeet Singh1 Department of Botany, 1Department of Vegetable Crops Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141 004, India *E-mail: navjyot_grewal@yahoo.com Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) is an important vegetable crop grown in India, both for fresh market and processing industry. High temperature stress is one of the major limiting factor for pepper production. It affects several physiological and biochemical processes of the plant leading to impaired growth and reproduction; shorten life cycle by hastening flowering and maturity; and reduced yield of poor quality fruits. Hot pepper requires comparatively a longer growing season of 130-150 days and fruit setting is drastically reduced if dry weather is accompanied by high temperature (30C). The present studies were undertaken to evaluate hot pepper germplasm for high temperature stress tolerance to identify heat tolerant genotypes that can be utilized in hybrid breeding programmes to initiate the development of high temperature tolerant chilli cultivars. A field evaluation of eleven hot pepper genotypes viz. Sel-11, PLS-1, Sel Dev, DCL-524, Punjab Surkh, VR-16, Pepsi-17-2, MS-12 , S-217621, PBC-535 and Faslima was conducted for heat tolerance, keeping Royal wonder genotype of sweet pepper as sensitive check. Data on fruit set, seed set, fruit length and fruit diameter were recorded from field grown chilli plants at mean daily temperatures of 25C (control, 34/16C day/night temperatures) and 32C (high temperature, 40/24C day/night temperatures).Results showed that highly significant variation was observed in fruit set percent with overall mean of 64.9% as compared to 23.3% fruit set in Royal wonder at mean daily temperature of 25C. The fruit set percent was maximum in S-217621 (86) followed by the genotypes DCL-524 (83), PLS-1 (82), VR-16 (80) and MS-12 (78%). High temperature (32C) decreased fruit set in all the tested genotypes with overall mean of 18.2% against 4.8% fruit set in Royal wonder. At this temperature, highest fruit set percent was observed in Pepsi-17-2 (46) followed by the genotypes S-217621 (36), DCL-524 (25.2), MS-12 (25), VR-16 (24.4) and Sel-11 (19). Pollen viability of hot pepper genotypes varied from 80-100% and 60-80% at 25C and 32C, respectively. Royal wonder genotype had 100 and 30 per cent pollen viability at 25C and 32C, respectively. High temperature not only reduced the fruit set percent but also caused reduction in seed number per fruit, fruit length and fruit diameter. Seed number per fruit ranged from 17 (Faslima) to 70 (MS-12) with average seed number per fruit of 49.4 at mean daily temperature of 25C. However at 32C, seed number per fruit ranged from 12 (Pepsi-17-2) to 50 (Sel Dev) with average seed number per fruit of 25.5. Minimum reduction in seed set was observed in Sel Dev (7.4%) followed by genotypes DCL-524

(29.3%), Punjab Surkh (30%) and S-217621 (41%).Seed number per fruit in Royal wonder was 8 and 2 at mean daily temperature of 25C and 32C, respectively. The genotype Faslima recorded longest and widest fruits at 25C. The genotype Sel-11 exhibited maximum reduction in fruit size both in terms of length (29%) and width (34%) of fruits while no significant reduction in fruit size was observed in the genotype S217621.Royal wonder exhibited 25.5 and 22.4 per cent reduction in length and width of fruits, respectively, at 32C. Among the tested genotypes, S-217621 was found to be most appropriate for heat tolerance due to maintenance of better fruit set, seed set, and fruit size at high temperature.

Fruit (%) Genoty pe Sel-11 25C 72.6

Set

Seed No. per fruit 25C 52.5 32C 24.0 (54.2 )

Fruit length (cm) 25C 6.35 32C 4.5 (29.1 )

Fruit width (mm) 25C 11.1 0 32C 7.29 (34.3)

Pollen fertility (%) 25 C 80 32 C 80

32 C 18.9

PLS-1

81.9

12.0

51.0

20.0 (60.8 )

9.70

8.8 (9.3)

13.9 6

12.69 (9.1) 13.19 (7.9) 10.72 (10.2 9) 10.37 (11.8 2) 7.71 (26.2) 13.65 (18.9) 10.6 (21) 12.99 (0.9) -

100

80

Sel. Dev

51.9

7.8

54.0

50.0 (7.4)

7.90

7.4 (6.3)

14.3 1 11.9 5

100

80

DCL-524

83.1

25.2

57.3

40.5 (29.3 )

5.60

4.9 (12.5 )

90

80

Punjab Surkh

67.6

4.7

57.2

40.0 (30)

4.69

4.2 (10.4 )

11.7 6

80

60

VR-16

80.0

24.4

27.7

15.5 (44)

5.72

5.11 (10.7 )

10.4 5

80

70

Pepsi17-2

53.3

46

20.7

11.7 (43.5 )

6.60

5.7 (13.6 )

16.8 3

80

80

PBC-535 MS-12

34.4 77.9

0 25

69.0 69.7

39.0 (44)

5.80 3.2

2.95 (7.8)

10.4 3 13.4 1 13.1 1 22.1

90 90

70 80

S217621 Faslima

86.0

36.4

67.8

40.0 (41)

7.16

7.13 (0.4)

90

60

26.0

16.8

10.5

80

70

0 Averag e 64.9 18. 2 49.4 25.5

Values given in brackets represent per cent reduction at 32C w.r.t. value at 25C Royal wonder 23.3 4.8 8.0 2.0 4.7 3.5 (25.5 ) 49.5 6 38.44 (22.4) 100 30