Caracterização morfológica e produtiva de pimentas (Capsicum spp)

Abstract

The Capsicum peppers are used in different ways by many cultures throughout the world. In Brazil it is found wide variability of this genus and Amazon is an important center of diversity, there is wide genetic variability expressed on several characteristics of plants, flowers and fruits. Information about the diversity in germplasm collection serve to increase the efficiency of improvement works of cultivated species, through morphological characterization is possible to describe accesses that exists in collections, this is important to organize the information and let it available for use in breeding programs. To study the genetic variability of Capsicum spp. It was stablished a collection of its kind in the Faculty of Agrarian Sciences, Federal University of Amazonas, UFAM. The objective of this study was to characterize morphologically 40 accesses collected in the Amazonas. Were analyzed, with small modifications, 61 morphological descriptors recommended by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) for the genus Capsicum, including characteristics of the seedling, plant, flowers and fruits. The accesses were grown in the sector of Olericulture in the Faculty of Agrarian Sciences, Federal University of Amazonas. Using 17 descriptors, identified as essential by IPGRI, we calculated the genetic similarity among accesses using the general similarity coefficient of Gower. The accesses were grouped by the hierarchical method of distances average (UPGMA - Unweighted Pair-Group Method using an Arithmetic Average) and the graphical representation of the similarity between them was made by the method of Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCO). Of the 61 descriptors evaluated only 10 (color, hypocotyl, leaf shape, corolla length, calyx pigmentation, spots or streaks with nodal anthocyanin, peduncle length, appendix at the end of the fruit, surface of the seed, seed size and seed color) showed no variation. According to the analyzed characteristics, especially the flowers, the most important for the differentiation of species, among the 40 accesses of the collection, three species were identified, 35 of C. chinenseJacq, a genotype C. baccatum and four C. frutescens. The characteristics of the fruit showed a great variation of classes; it was identified six colors of immature fruits and six in mature stage, four shapes of fruit and great variation in size and weight of fruits. The most part of the accesses showed high pungency. It was identified two morphotypesmurupi pepper, two finger-girl, four chillies, seven eye-of-fish, thirteen sweet and twelve curabiá. The similarity coefficient ranged from 0.42 to 1.0, indicates that there are in the collection accesses totally similar and different, indicating that despite the existence of duplicates is important the maintenance of the accesses. The collection presents a high genetic variability for characteristics of plants, flowers and fruits mainly for the specie C. chinense native to the Amazon region