Abstract
Corynespora blight caused by Corynespora cassiicola has spread through western Japan, leading to massive losses in sweet pepper production. In this study, to select plants resistant to Corynespora blight, we first inoculated 13 commercial cultivars and four mother lines of Capsicum plants with C. cassiicola. None of these plants were resistant to Corynespora blight. Of 38 breeding lines of Capsicum that were inoculated with C. cassiicola, five lines expressed a resistance to Corynespora blight that was highly variable among plants of the same line. Fourteen new lines were developed from the four resistant lines using anther culture. These anther-culture lines were highly resistant to the disease. From four anther-culture lines with higher resistance compared to other lines, self-cross breeding lines were produced. The self-cross breeding lines had high resistance to Corynespora blight, the same as the anther-culture lines. Thus, these self-cross breeding lines should be useful as mother lines for breeding new cultivars of C. annuum resistant to Corynespora blight.
