International Journal of Plant & Soil Science

Chilli (Capsicum annum L.) is one of the most prominent vegetable and spice crop with high demand in India because of its pungency, colour, flavour and agreeable taste as well as nutritional value. Chilli holds a special place among other vegetables in Indian and worldwide cuisine. To meet the demand, there is a need to study the performance of F₁ hybrids with higher yields. Keeping this in view, the performance of eleven chilli hybrids was studied for growth, yield and quality characters using Randomized Block Design with three replications in vertisols of Andhra Pradesh. The standard recommended package of practices and need-based plant protection measures was followed for raising the crop. The observations on plant height (cm), total number of branches per plant, plant spread (N-S and E-W) (cm) and days to 50% flowering, the fruit characteristics like number of fruits per plant, fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm) and average fruit weight (g) and the yield and quality parameters ascorbic acid, oleoresin, capsanthin, Cy, Cr was recorded. All the hybrids showed significant differences for all the characters studied. Based on the overall performance of various hybrids under study, the hybrids LCH-111, KHPH-229, NCH-1754, ARCH-228 recorded maximum yield with medium pungency and colour value under the Agro-climatic conditions of Andhra Pradesh.