Fruit set and yield patterns in six capsicum cultivars

Abstract

Fruit set and yield patterns were studied in detail in six pepper cultivars. Fruit set differed largely between the cultivars: cultivars with small fruits (fruit fresh weight 20 to 40 g) showed higher fruit set ('50%) than cultivars with large fruits (fruit fresh weight 120 to 200 g; 11% to 19%). The former showed continuous fruit set (four to five fruits/ plant/week), whereas the latter showed fluctuations in fruit set. Fluctuations in weekly fruit set, expressed as the ratio between standard deviation of weekly fruit set and the mean of weekly fruit set (CV), were much lower for the cultivars with small fruits (0.44 to 0.49) than for the cultivars with large fruits (1.1 to 1.6). Fluctuations in weekly fruit yield varied between 0.51 and 0.77 for cultivars with small fruits and between 1.04 and 1.45 for cultivars with large fruits. Fluctuations in fruit yield were significantly positively correlated (Pearson R = 0.87) with fluctuations in fruit set. The correlation between fruit set and fruit yield patterns was highest with a lag time of 8 weeks for the cultivars with small fruits and 9 to 10 weeks for the cultivars with large fruits. This corresponds with the expected lag time based on the average fruit growth duration. The cultivars produced the same amount of biomass, implying that source strength was more or less similar. Hence, differences in fruit set and fruit yield patterns between the cultivars were not the result of differences in source strength and must therefore be related to differences in sink strength.