Repeatability of agronomic and morphological characteristics in ornamental pepper

Abstract

Breeding programs seek to reduce the time spent assessing characteristics more times than necessary. However, this reduction should in no way undermine the representativeness and reliability of the information. Thus, an important success factor in breeding programs is the knowledge of the ideal number of assessments needed to evaluate commercially important characteristics in each species or population. In this context, this study aimed to determine the repeatability coefficient of eight biometric traits in four populations of ornamental pepper, seeking to increase the efficiency of evaluation and selection processes. There was no significant influence of the calculation method used over the estimate of the repeatability coefficient. The results indicated that five plants are necessary to assess plant height; leaf number, length and width; and fruit number, length and width in the ornamental pepper material we used with a determination coefficient of 90%.