Analysis of morphological diversity among hot pepper Capsicum annuum L collections in the Rift Valley area of Ethiopia 152

This study was undertaken to evaluate degree of morphological diversity of 49 pepper accessions at Melkassa to compare the field performance of yield and quality of berries during the year 2014, in a 7x7 simple lattice design. Data on plant morphology and berry characteristics were collected and subjected to analysis of variance to determine the diversity that exists among the local materials. The analysis of variance revealed significant (P<0.05) differences in morphological and berry characters among the tested accessions indicating the existence of good genetic variability. From the principal component analysis five axis were obtained that accounted for about 75% of the variability. Most of growth and fruiting characters were associated with the first components, while the second and third components were associated with plant, berry and flowering characters. From the hierarchical similarity analysis six clusters were obtained with the similarity values ranging from 0.27 to 1.43. Inter-cluster D² values ranged from 19 to 159 in which cluster II and VI showed higher level of inter-cluster distances among themselves and with the rest of the clusters. Narrow cluster distances were obtained between clusters I, III and V which showed high similarity of accessions within these clusters. The average mean performance for a particular character indicated that cluster I can be a source of genes for earliness and strong stem and good number of branches. Accessions in cluster II can be specifically useful for improving berry length and plant height. However, for improving berry yield using accessions in cluster III and V as a parent, is advantageous. Therefore crossing accessions in clusters I, III, IV and V with either or both clusters II and VI is useful in future breeding programs.