Development of cytoplasmic male sterile lines in chilli (Capsicum annuum L.) and their evaluation across multiple environments

A breeding program was initiated in 2009 to develop temperature stable CMS lines in chilli. ‘CCA 4261’ was used as a CMS donor. From the 11 testcross progeny screened, maintainer plants were identified from ‘SL 461’, ‘SL 462’ and ‘SD 463’. After 6 backcrosses to the maintainer plants, 17 CMS lines in diverse genetic backgrounds were established. The CMS lines were evaluated for stability of sterility over four environments during 2014–15 and 2015–16. The environments E(1) and E(3) represented the low temperature regime, and E(2) and E(4) the high temperature regime. The mean square values due to the genotypes and the environments were significant at p = 0.01 for pollen sterility (%), pollen release score, fruit setting (%) and number of seed fruit(−1). The G × E interaction effects were significant for pollen sterility (%), fruit setting and number of seed fruit(−1) and non-significant for pollen release score. Ten lines namely ‘CMS4611A’, ‘CMS4614A’, ‘CMS4622A’, ‘CMS4624A’, ‘CMS4626A’, ‘CMS46213A’, ‘CMS463D2A’, ‘CMS463D13A’, ‘CMS463D14A’ and ‘CMS463L5A’ were completely male sterile across the environments. Under open pollination conditions, the fruit and the seed setting ability of these lines was normal. The CMS transferred into the diverse genetic backgrounds would broaden the CMS germplasm resources in chilli.