Variation of plant and fruit traits in native Mexican costeño pepper

ABSTRACT In a collection of costeño peppers conserved by indigenous producers from the municipalities of Santa Maria Tonameca and Santo Domingo de Morelos, Oaxaca, Mexico, a description and classification of agromorphological variation was undertaken by characterization of 46 populations in a greenhouse distributed under complete randomized block design with three replicates. Days to first flowering, plant and fruit traits and yield per plant were evaluated. Significant differences were detected for all traits except for plant height at 120 days after planting. In a principal component analysis, the variables of green and dry weight of 15 fruits, average fruit weight, number of fruits and yield per plant were the characteristics with major descriptive value for the total phenotypic variance. In addition, two patterns of agromorphological variation were determined; for productivity, one was highly variable and integrated with pepper populations from La Oscurana, Villa Unión and San Juanito communities, and the other was integrated with less variable populations, such as those from Las Pilas. These phenotypic patterns were confirmed in a cluster analysis, where five phenotypic groups were statistically significantly different. Complementarily, an inverse relationship was determined between number of fruits per plant and average fruit weight in ten populations that presented high agronomic potential; a yield greater than 500 g per plant, more than 100 fruits per plant and an average weight greater than 3.9 g per fruit were detected.