Last modified: 2017-04-18
Abstract
Fruits from genus Capsicum or Chile peppers are one of the most important vegetables and spices in the world. They are used in a range of dishes and recipes, being C. annuum the most common and diverse species. Mexico is the primary center of diversity of this species and a plethora of ecotypes can be found there. Lately Mexican Institutions are doing huge efforts to improve ancient open-pollination landraces, called criollos. The first steps involve participatory breeding programs (PB) with farmers to identify the best individuals within criollo populations in the field and to recover their seeds (pedigree method combined with open pollination). Thus, it is of paramount interest to know how open-pollination affects inbreeding process as well as preserves a minimum level of diversity inherent to these materials. In this work 15 accessions (five plants each) of Chile Ancho/Poblano from the UAA Chile Breeding Program, encompassing two original criollo lines and their open-pollination progenies, were characterized with 23 SSR markers. Five inbred cultivars were used as controls. A total of 57 alleles were identified and levels of heterozygosity comprised between 26% and 59% were found in the progenies. Progenies showed homozygosis higher than those from their original parent plants, although considerably lower than inbred control cultivars. By contrast, progenies showed similar levels of agronomic and morphological uniformity than those from the inbred control cultivars. Our results suggest that this PB program is efficient in terms of reaching enough agronomic uniformity in criollo Ancho peppers as well as preserving certain levels of genetic diversity.
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This abstract was accepted to be presented at the conference entitled “40 Years of Horticulture Education in Cluj-Napoca†Cluj-Napoca, September 27, 2017, being included in ‘Book of Abstracts’ of this special-anniversary event (http://conference.shst.ro). All accepted papers will be published in a special issue of Notulae Botanicae Horti Agrobotanici Cluj-Napoca journal.