Improvement of important economic traits in chilli through heterosis breeding: a review

ABSTRACT

Chilli (Capsicum species) is an important spice and vegetable crop of the world. Capsicum species have been widely used in food as well as in pharmaceutical industries. This is because these species possess various phytochemicals with antidiabetic and antioxidant activities. There has been a continuous global demand for chilli as a commercial crop due to its food value and health benefits. It is very important to enhance chilli production rapidly to tackle this global demand while improving its nutritional and health benefits. Plant breeders working on chilli have applied various breeding approaches in attempts to improve the important economic traits of chilli. Among the various plant breeding methods that can be applied to improve such traits, heterosis breeding plays a critical role in the rapid increase in yield and other important economic traits in chilli. Genetically diverse inbred lines of chilli with good combining ability are used in heterosis breeding. Scientists working on chilli have observed the significance of heterosis for economic traits and economic traits correlated with agronomic traits for improvement in the desired direction. This present article highlights recent progress and achievement in heterosis breeding in attempts to enhance yield, yield-related agronomic traits and other economic traits of chilli.

KEYWORDS:

• Chilli
• economic traits
• heterosis
• improvement
• plant breeding
• yield

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Sri Lanka Council for Agriculture Research Policy for granting the PhD fellowship to H.M.S.N. Herath.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.