Abstract: Fruit development of hot pepper is a complex genetic process, and the change of fruit quality is a key problem. In this study, the pattern of fruit quality change in five genotypes of pepper including the hot pepper cultivars ‘SJ11-3’ (screw-shaped), ‘06g19-1-1-1’ (short caprine horn-shaped), ‘CJ14-11-2-5-1’ (Chaotian) and ‘L2016-61’ (linear) and the lantern-shaped sweet pepper cultivar ‘THNX143’ was investigated at four different stage of development. The results showed that the contents of soluble sugar, fructose, sucrose, glucose, soluble protein, free amino acids, vitamin C (VC) and vitamin E (VE), capsanthin, capsaicin and lignin but not cellulose and hemicellulose generally increased to different extents with fruit development. At the transition from the green-ripe to color-turning stage, the pepper cultivars showed the greatest changes in quality traits among all developmental stages, and the contents of fructose, sucrose, glucose, total soluble sugar, soluble protein, free amino acids and VC substantially increased. Correlation analysis illustrated that the contents of cellulose and hemicellulose were negatively correlated with other quality traits, which were positively correlated with each other. The quality of the five genotypes at the green-ripe and red-ripe stages was comprehensively evaluated by membership function values analysis, revealing that the scores were ranked as follows: ‘CJ14-11-2-5-1’ > ‘SJ11-3’ > ‘THNX143’ > ‘06g19-1-1-1’ > ‘L2016-61’ for the green-ripe stage, and ‘SJ11-3’ > ‘CJ14-11-2-5-1’ > ‘THNX143’ > ‘06g19-1-1-1’ > ‘L2016-61’ for the red-ripe stage. This study may provide a basis for future studies on the formation mechanism of pepper fruit quality and for breeding for improved quality.

Key words: pepper; genotype; fruit; development; quality