Inheritance of resistance to Meloidogyne incognita race 2 in the hot pepper cultivar Carolina Cayenne (Capsicum annuum L.).

Root-knot nematodes of the genus Meloidogyne are important pathogens affecting vegetable crop production in Brazil and worldwide. The pepper species Capsicum annuum includes both hot and sweet peppers; very little emphasis has been placed on breeding sweet peppers for nematode resistance. We report on the inheritance of resistance to Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid & White) Chitwood race 2 in the hot pepper cultivar Carolina Cayenne. The hot pepper cv. Carolina Cayenne was used as seed parent and the sweet pepper cv. Agronômico-8 was used as pollen parent to obtain the F(1) and F(2) generations and the backcross generations BC(11) and BC(12). The plants were inoculated with M. incognita race 2 at a rate of 60 eggs/ml of substrate and, after a suitable incubation period, the numbers of root galls and egg masses per root system were evaluated on each plant. Broad- (0.77 and 0.72) and narrow-sense (0.77 and 0.63) heritability estimates were high for both root galls and egg masses, respectively. The mean degree of dominance was estimated as 0.29 and 0.25 for numbers of galls and egg masses, respectively; these estimates were not significantly different from 0, indicating a predominantly additive gene action. The results were consistent with a hypothesis of monogenic resistance in Carolina Cayenne.