In pepper, investigation of important traits such as disease resistances, high yield and pungency were mostly focused on a cultivated species, Capsicum annuum. This narrow breeding pool hampered to develop improved cultivars. Exploitation of wild germplasm in Capsicum has been recognized as an important issue. The construction of core collection and analysis of genetic diversity in Capsicum is the first step to make full use of germplasm. Although there have been several attempts to construct core collections in Capsicum, most of the works were limited due to handling small number of samples, relying mainly on the characterization of morphological traits and focusing on C. annuum species. Therefore, the comprehensive studies for genetic diversity and structure of Capsicum including phenotypic data, molecular marker patterns and evaluation of useful alleles are very necessary to understand the structure and patterns of genetic diversity in Capsicum. We are developing for a core collection set in Capsicum using molecular markers and phenotypic data with over 3,000 germplasm accessions.

• Jin-Kyung Kwon(Department of Plant Science and Vegetable Breeding Research Center, Seoul National University)
• Hee-Jin Jeong(Department of Plant Science and Vegetable Breeding Research Center, Seoul National University)
• Na Young Ro(National Academy of Agricultural Science, Rural Development Administration)
• Byoung-Cheorl Kang(Department of Plant Science and Vegetable Breeding Research Center, Seoul National University) Corresponding Author