Cultivar Evaluation for Red Pepper under Organic Crop Management in Korea

To screen several promising red pepper cultivars, may be adaptable to organic cultivation conditions, seventy six F1 hybrids commercial and eight local purebred red pepper cultivars were tested. Comparing the infection rate of phytophthora blight between commercial (F1 hybrid) and local (Purebred) cultivars, average infection rate of commercial cultivars was 9.8% and that of local cultivars was 17.8%. But the infected fruits rate of anthracnose in field were similar as 3.3% in commercial (F1 hybrid) and 3.1% in local (Purebred) cultivars. In yield characteristics, average yield of commercial cultivars was 2.89 t $ha^{-1}$ and that of local cultivars was 2.22 t $ha^{-1}$. For organic pepper farmers it is more favourable to cultivation purebred cultivars because they can save to the same quality plant next year's crop. In this study among the local purebred cultivars, two cultivars are promising that their yield near to 3 t $ha^{-1}$ and have disease field resistance.