Characterization and Diversity of Peppers (Capsicum spp.) Genotypes Based on Morphological Traits Using Multivariate Analysis

The present work aimed to characterize and evaluate Capsicum peppers in the South of the State of Espírito Santo, in order to estimate the variability among the accessions for the Germplasm Bank implementation. For this, 33 genotypes were collected through donations in four municipalities in the region. The genotypes were characterized based on nine quantitative descriptors: number of seeds per fruit (NS), number of fruit locules (NL), number of fruits per plant (NFR), plant height (PH), leaf width (LW), leaf length (LL), fruit length (FRL) and fruit diameter (FRD). Analysis of variance and means grouping by the Scott-Knott test was performed (P=.01). To estimate the diversity, the Tocher method was realized. The GT Biplot analysis was performed with using RStudio program to estimate discrimination, representativeness and correlation of characteristics. It was found a great diversity among the studied genotypes, being able to emphasize the accession Ifes 01 and Ifes 03 as the most divergent ones. The Tocher grouping allowed the formation of seven groups. The biplot analysis presented the formation of three groups of characteristics. The access Ifes 01 stood out for the group of characteristics FRL, NS and FRD. The Ifes 32 accession was highlighted for the PH and DC characteristics group, and the Ifes 20 accession was highlighted for the group formed by the NFR characteristic. It was observed that the characteristics that contributed the most to the divergence of accessions were PH and DC, and the most representative characteristic was DC. So, it’s concluded that there is great variability among the genotypes collected, presenting great phenotypic variation for the nine characters studied. In addition, some accesses were promising for plant breeding programs, pointing to gains in the various segments of the peppers market, which shows the importance of the collections of the producers in the South of Espírito Santo.