Evaluation of Genetic Resource Traits for the Development into a Horticultural Item of Hungarian ‘Hot Pepper Varieties’

This study was conducted to evaluate 35 units of genetic resources collected from Hungary in 1999, and identify their horticultural traits and select useful resources. A comparison with ‘Geumdang’ and ‘Superbigarim’, the two varieties of Korean origin now being marketed indicated that the durations of time involved in flowering were largely similar to each other, and that the stem length of the Korean varieties averaged 163 cm, comparing with that of Hungarian varieties that averaged 133 cm. As for the fruit shape, the sweet banana type which was similar to the Korean counterpart accounted for 83%, ranking a top, followed by smaller varieties of which the cherry type accounted for 14% of the total. The hungarian varieties averaged 34.7 g in weight, a level significantly heavier than the Korean counterparts that averaged 25 g. As regards the ASTA value, 9 resources registered 100 or over, and as regards sugar contents, 4 resources reached 15% or over. As for capsaicinoid contents, 69% of the resources reached 10 mg% or lower, and 17% reached 10~40 mg%, followed by the group of 49 mg% or over that accounted for 14%. As a rule, the resources sampled for the current study were relatively less hot in taste.