DIVERSITY OF GENETIC RESOURCES AND GENETIC ASSOCIATION ANALYSES OF GREEN AND DRY CHILLIES OF EASTERN INDIA

Chilli ( Capsicum annuum L.) is regarded as one of the main commercial vegetable and spice crops at the global level. Maximum diversity can be noted among the cultivars/landraces available in India with respect to shape, size, yield, quality, and other traits. The present experiment was conducted to identify the most promising chilli variety suited for green and dry purposes, to study the genetic variability for different traits and to assess the association of different yield attributing traits with the green and dry yield of chilli. Thirty four genotypes were characterized during a 2-yr period. Most of the genotypes possessed the character constellation of C. annuum. Two genotypes, 'Chaitali Pointed' and 'BC CH Sel-4' were found most promising with respect to green fruit yield (272.79 g, 221.10 g per plant) and dry fruit yield (54.56 g, 44.44 g per plant). Phenotypic and Genotypic Coefficient of Variation values for green fruit weight (119.95%, 111.26%), green fruit girth (89.76%, 48.93%), weight of red ripe fruit (112.02%, 111.93%), weight of dry fruit (111.63%, 110.97%) and number of fruits per plant (86.05%, 85.02%) were recorded to be high. Green fruit yield per plant, ascorbic acid content, and number of fruits per plant also showed very high broad-sense heritability and genetic advance. From the study of correlation and path coefficient analyses, the number of fruits per plant, green fruit length for green chilli, weight of dry fruit and the number of fruits per plant for dry chilli were found to the most important selection indices