ADAPTABILITY AND RELIABILITY OF YIELD FOR 4 BELL PEPPER CULTIVARS ACROSS 3 SOUTHEASTERN STATES

Four bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L,) cultivars were evaluated for yie ld (total weight of marketable fruit) performance over 41 environments as combinations of 3 years, three planting dates, and seven locations across North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, Cultural practice s, including trickle irrigation and double rows planted on black-plast ic-covered beds, were uniform across all environments, except for fert ilization, which was adjusted at each Location based on soil tests, Co mparing production over 3 years between the mountain location and the Coastal Plain location in North Carolina, yields were lower on the Coa stal Plain, Spring plantings provided higher yields than summer planti ngs at both locations, Yield increases were obtained from hybrid culti vars over that of the open-pollinated (OP) standard ['Keystone Resista nt Giant #3' (KRG#3)] in the summer planting in the mountains compared to the Tidewater Coastal Plain, Across the three-state region, hybrid cultivar yields were higher than those of the OP cultivar for the sec ond spring planting date in 1986 and 1987, Although the hybrid yields were higher than that of the OP standard, the hybrid 'Skipper' yielded less than the other hybrids ('Gator Belle' and 'Hybelle'), 'Gator Bel le' generally out-yielded 'Hybelle'' at all locations, except in Fletc her, N,C, This difference may be related to the relative sensitivity o f these two cultivars to temperature extremes, rather than soil or geo graphic factors, because there was a tendency for 'Hybelle' yields to exceed 'Gator Belle' in the earliest planting date, Based on the relia bility index, the chance of outperforming KRG#3 (the standard) was 85% for 'Hybelle', 80% for 'Gator Belle', but only 67% for 'Skipper'.