Diversity of Genetic Resources and Genetic Association Analyses of Green and Dry Chillies of Eastern India

The genotypes showed a wide range of variation in different yield component traits (Table 2). The earliest 50% flowering was noted in genotype Cob chilli-10 (30.33 d) followed by 'Cob chilli-3' (30.67 d), 'HP-30' and 'HP-33' (31.00 d). However, very late flowering was observed in chilli-335 (109.00 d). The green fruit weight of the genotypes varied between 1.60 g and 23.00 g, the maximum being in HP-30 followed by genotypes HP-25 (20.67 g). Green fruit length was the maximum in 'HP-25' (14.97 cm) and the minimum in 'chilli-335' (2.93 cm). The range of values was comparable to observations of Rani (2001). The green fruit girth varied from 0.53 to 2.77 cm. The results are in line with those observed by Chandra et al. (1990). The weight of red ripe fruit weight varied considerably, ranging from 1.07 to 19.87 g. The maximum weight of dry fruit was found in 'HP-30' (4.60 g) and the minimum in 'Beldanga' (0.20 g). The number of fruits per plant ranged from 5.6 to 134.0. The maximum number of fruits per plant was recorded in 'BC Ch Sel-4' and the minimum in 'HP-30'. The number of seeds per fruit varied from 43.33 to 117. The green fruit yield per plant varied considerably, ranging from 41.80 to 272.79 g. The maximum green fruit yield per plant was obtained in '[Chaitali] pointed' followed by 'BC Ch Sel-4'. The range of values was in agreement with the observations of previous works (Chandra et al., 1990; [Singh, M.D.] et al., 2005; Tembhurne et al., 2008). The mean ratio of green fruit yield to dry fruit yield per plant was 4.87:1. The results corroborate the earlier findings of Sheela et al. (2004), who observed 20.25 to 25.61% recovery of dry chilli from the green ones. The maximum dry fruit yield per plant was noted in 'Chaitali pointed' (54.56 g) and the minimum was recorded in 'Cob chilli-8' (8.36 g). The same trend of results were obtained by earlier works (Rani, 2001; Singh et al., 2005).