Abstract
Dwarfism and a virus-like syndrome (VLS) were studied in interspecific hybrids of Capsicum annuum, C. chinense, C. frutescens and C. baccatum.
Two cultivars of C. chinense used in this experiment had the same dwarfness gene as C. chinense ‘No. 3341’, which had been proven to produce the dwarfism in interspecific hybrids with C. annuum in the previous paper(8).
C. frutescens cv. ‘Tabasco’ also had the same dwarfness gene as C. chinense ‘No. 3341’.
Cytoplasmic inheritance was not implicated in the dwarfism.
The VLS was produced when C. chinense or C. frutescens was used as the female parent in crossing with C. baccatum, while it was not produced in the reciprocal crossing. Production of the VLS was related to the cytoplasm of C. chinense or C. frutescens as well as to the nuclear gene. The VLS was also produced in crossing C. annuum cv. ‘Black Prince’×C. baccatum ‘No. 3985’. These results suggested that a portion of the cytoplasm was genetically common in C. chinense, C. frutescens and C. annuum cv. ‘Black Prince’.
