Heterosis and combining ability for earliness, plant growth, yield and fruit attributes in hot pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) involving genetic and cytoplasmic-genetic male sterile lines

Twelve genetically diverse inbred lines, including a cytoplasmic-genetic male sterile (CGMS) and a genetic male sterile (GMS) line, of hot pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) were crossed in half-diallel to produce 66 F1 hybrids. The seeds of 78 genotypes were evaluated for 11 characters in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications for 2 years, viz., 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India. The pooled analysis showed that both additive and non-additive genetic variances were important in controlling the expression of all the traits, however additive variance for days to flowering, fruit length, fruit width, average fruit weight, and pericarp thickness, and non-additive variance for total fruit yield plant−1 and plant spread were comparatively more important. The GMS line MS 341 was a good general combiner for four parameters, viz., early yield, number of fruits plant−1, fruit length and number of seeds fruit−1. The CGMS line CC 141 was a good general combiner for three characters, viz., fruit length, plant height and plant spread. The inbred line SL 461 was the best general combiner for fruit length and total fruit yield plant−1, DL 161 for days to flowering and number of fruits plant−1, SD 463 for average fruit weight and pericarp thickness, PP 402 for early yield and fruit width. The combining ability of the parental lines had a nice consonance with their per se performance. Most of the F1 hybrids have higher early and total yield, along with higher number of fruits, fruit length, plant height and plant spread, but lower pericarp thickness and fruit width. The magnitude of heterobeltiosis varied from −35.77 to 5.00% for days to flowering, −64.94 to 238.48% for early yield, −79.30 to 205.95% for number of fruits plant−1, −4.72 to 39.64% for fruit length, −20.60 to 10.41% for fruit width, −28.65 to 57.52% for average fruit weight, −37.98 to 14.39 for pericarp thickness, −80.70 to 89.94% for number of seeds fruit−1, −1.80 to 32.21% for plant height, −13.77 to 20.66% for plant spread, and −71.82 to 331.11% for total fruit yield plant−1. The study offers the opportunity of transferring male sterility in to good combiner lines, viz., SD 463, SL 461, US 501, PP 402 and DL 161, and evaluating the top 10 hybrids, exhibiting more than 100% heterobeltiosis for total fruit yield plant−1 along with high specific combining ability and per se performance, over multi-locations to test their stability.