Genetic variability and character association studies for yield and yield contributing traits in bell pepper

The present investigation on genetic variability including mean, genotypic and phenotypic variances, coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance was conducted on twenty-five genetically diverse genotypes of bell pepper. The findings revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the assessed traits. On the basis of mean performance, genotypes California Wonder, Kyartoo Selection-I, Kadhar Selection, Tikker Selection, Deothi Selection and Badoon Selection outperformed for fruit yield per plant, average fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, fruit length, fruit breadth and took lesser number of days to first harvest. The phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) and genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) were high for fruit yield per plant (37.96, 37.88) indicating that this trait had wide genetic variability and would respond better to selection. Higher heritability was recorded for traits such as fruit yield per plant (99.59), number of seeds per fruit (98.98), number of fruits per plant (98.63), thousand seed weight (98.24), pericarp thickness (97.63) and average fruit weight (97.42). At genotypic levels, the traits fruit length, fruit diameter and number of fruits per plant revealed significant positive correlation with fruit yield per plant.