Clustering Different Greenhouse Pepper Varieties Based on Some Morphological and Fruit Yield

Abstract Pepper is one of most important vegetables in the world. Pepper has important role in world vegetablecommerce and the worth of its export and import is very high. Selection of better plants is inseparableparts of breeding programs and need a variable population. So assessment of genetic variation is the firststep of breeding programs/ For this purpose, genetic variation of 22 different varieties of greenhousepepper was assayed for days to flowering and fruiting, plant height, peduncle length, single fruit weight, fruit yield and fruit length. Descriptive results showed that there was high variation between varieties forearliness, fruit yield and fruit number. Cluster analysis could group varieties into 5 groups that showedthe highest difference for single fruit weight, fruit yield and plant height. Late ripening varieties showedlow yield, however varieties with high fruit yield showed high fruit number. Therefore, fruit number had more effect on fruit yield in contrast to single fruit weight. Over all varieties in different groups could usein breeding programs with different aims. Keywords: Cluster analysis, Pepper, Fruit weight