evaluation of genetic diversity in pepper (capsicum spp.) genotypes using morphological traits

pepper belongs to the family of solanaceae that is being used as a food flavoring, a coloring agent, a pharmaceutical ingredient and in other innovative ways. this study was carried out to evaluation of genetic diversity in pepper genotypes using 40 morphological traits on 77 genotypes in augmented design with three controls. measuring of traits of pepper genotypes were performed based on ecpgr descriptor. important traits were evaluated such as; fruit length, fruit width, fruit dry weight and 1000 seed weight. correlation analysis of quantitative traits revealed that the greatest positive correlation observed between fruit width and fruit dry weight (0.863**). the results of factor analysis showed that 13 independent and major factors, explained 74.59% of changes of all data. with using stepwise regression, when that fruit weigth as a dependent variable and other quantitative traits were considered as independent variables, 73.8% of changes was explained by traits of fruit width, fruit wall thickness, matur leaf length, matur leaf width and fruit length. with using ward method for cluster analysis, genotypes in distance of 8 were divided into five sub-clusters, but we didn,t find any relationship between this clusters and geographical distribution. this study showed that the evaluated of genotypes have considerable genetic variation and morphological traits can be significant tools for classification and separation of pepper genotypes.