Production and Identification of Interspecific Hybrids between Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) and the Wild Relative (Capsicum frutescens L.)

Wild pepper (Capsicum frutescens L.) could be a source of variation to improve cultivated pepper due to its unique traits with adapting challenges caused by adversity. Interspecific hybridization has been used as an effective way of pepper introgression breeding, which transfers genes of interest from wild relatives to cultivated crops. Here, eight fertile hybrids F1 were produced from pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) and the wild relative (C. frutescens), as female and male, respectively, by interspecific hybridization. Interspecific hybrids were identified using conventional morphological descriptors and SSR molecular markers. The results showed that significant differences in agronomic traits existed among cultivated pepper, wild relatives, and interspecific hybrid F1. Interspecific hybrid F1 presented intermediate values, although they were closer to the wild species in most of the agronomic traits. Analysis of SSR markers clearly showed that interspecific hybrid F1 had bands from the paternal and maternal accessions, which indicated that F1 hybrid was heterozygous. Our results provide hybrid for breeder to transfer genes of interest from wild relative, C. frutescens, to cultivated pepper, which is an important step for introgression breeding.