Comparative Study of Fruit Yield Formation of Green and Purple Cultivars of Qiubei Chili

Purpose To clarify the differences of the fruit yields and their formations between the green (Wenla No. 6) and purple (Wenzijiao No. 1) cultivars of Qiubei chili.

Methods The contents of total anthocyanins, soluble sugars, starches and soluble proteins of the fruits with various developmental stages were determined by using spectrophotometry, the contents of crude fibers and fats by heating digestion and Soxhlet extraction, respectively, and the correlations among the indexes were analyzed.

Results During development, the contents of total anthocyanins, soluble sugars, crude fibers and soluble proteins of the fruits, and the fresh and dry weights of single fruits of Wenzijiao No. 1 were significantly higher than those of Wenla No. 6; and the starch contents were higher than those of Wenla No. 6 fruits at stage 1-4, but lower than those of Wenla No. 6 fruits at stage 5; the crude fat contents were lower than those of Wenla No. 6 fruits at stage 1, but higher than those of Wenla No. 6 fruits at stage 2-5; and the drying rates (DRs) were higher than those of Wenla No. 6 fruits at stage 1 and 5, but lower than those of Wenla No. 6 fruits at stage 2-4. The correlations among the contents of total anthocyanins, soluble sugars and so on, the single fruit weights and DRs of the two cultivars were inconsistent. The number of fruit per plant(NFPP) and yield per unit area(YPUA) of Wenzijiao No. 1 were about 63.01% and 60.11% lower than those of Wenla No. 6, respectively.

Conclusion For Qiubei chili, the NFPP and YPUA of the purple cultivars are obviously lower than those of the green cultivars.