ANTHOCYANIN CONTENT AND TOTAL PHENOLICS OF FLOWERS AND LEAVES IN ORNAMENTAL PEPPERS

Capsicum is a tropical genus with a large variety of flower and fruit colors and plant architecture.
The purple color of the flowers and leaves are an attractive trait to consumers of ornamental peppers.
The goal of this work was to quantify the anthocyanin content and total phenolics of flowers and leaves in two ornamental peppers and their F₁ hybrid as well as in the ‘Black Pearl’ cultivar.
For this, contrasting parents: P1 (white flower and green foliage); P2 (purple flower and purple foliage) were crossed to obtain F₁ seeds.
Then the cultivars ‘Black Pearl’, P1, P2 and F₁ were grown in a greenhouse and at the blooming stage the flowers and leaves were collected and evaluated for anthocyanin and total phenolics content.
Flowers and leaves were collected in five and eight replicates, respectively.
The data were submitted to F test (p≤0.05) and the means were grouped by Duncan’s multiple range test.
No differences were found among genotypes for flower anthocyanin.
However, there were different contents for the flower total phenolics.
The F₁ plants showed higher total phenolics compared to their parents and ‘Black Pearl’. For the leaves, there were no significant differences (p≤0.05) among the treatments for total phenolics.
For anthocyanin, the P2 was similar to ‘Black Pearl’, P1 showed minor levels of anthocyanin compared to P2 and ‘Black Pearl’ and the hybrid was inferior to both parents.
Results showed positive over dominance for flower total phenolics and negative over dominance for leaves anthocyanin.

XXVIII International Horticultural Congress on Science and Horticulture for People (IHC2010): International Symposium on Advances in Ornamentals, Landscape and Urban Horticulture

E. Ramalho do Rêgo, F.L. Finger, A.M. Mapeli, N.F.F. do Nascimento, M.F. Nascimento, R.M. Cortez dos Santos, M. Monteiro do Rêgo

Capsicum annuum, variability, genetic resource, segregating generation

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.937.34