24 / SEEDWORLD.COM FEBRUARY 2018 FOR OUR ANNUAL fruit and veg- etable issue, leading sweet pepper breeders share the latest on breeding for yield and resistance to pests and disease, as well as challenges with securing genetic diversity and more. These top breeders also share their thoughts on innovations and future breeding directions. The four industry experts are: Updates on Sweet Pepper Breeding for Yield, Resistance and More, and What’s to Come. Treena Hein Origins and Market Share The bell pepper (also called the sweet pepper or capsicum) is a cultivar of the species Capsicum annuum, which origi- nated in Mexico, Central America and northern South America. Researchers at University of California (Davis) report that dried pepper fruits and seeds have been recovered from 9000 year-old burial sites in Mexico. Domestication might have taken place as early as 12,000 years ago, making peppers was one of the first crops in the Americas to be domesti- cated. Columbus brought dried peppers to Europe in 1493 and their use spread across that region and into Africa, Asia and North America. Today, China is the world's largest pepper producer, followed by Mexico and Indonesia. The website ‘World’s Top Exports’ reports that global exports of sweet peppers and chili peppers totaled $5 billion USD during 2016, an aver- age 14.7% increase over 2012. The site states that “Europe exported the high- est dollar worth of peppers during 2016, with shipments valued at $2.5 billion (50.2% of total worldwide sales. In second place was North America at 35.2% while 10.6% of worldwide peppers shipments originated from Asian exporters.” Smaller percentages came from Africa, Latin America (excluding Mexico) and Oceania. NEW COLORS, NEW SHAPES, NEW TASTES Bill McCarthy, Americas Sweet Pepper Breeder, Monsanto Matthieu Nicolas, Global Breeding Lead for Peppers, Syngenta Natalia Nagy, Global R&D Team Lead Peppers, Bayer Ariadna Monroy, Sweet Pepper Breeder, H.M. Clause Sweet pepper is an increasing popular vegetable crop, available in several different types and colors. Please tell us about your breeding focus. Bill McCarthy (BM): My primary focus over the past years has been to provide stable products that allow growers to more consistently harvest a marketable product. Darker green color, better fruit quality and better fruit uniformity have worked well for me. My true passion is creating products that allow grow- ers to create a crop using less pesti- cides. Introducing hybrids with resistance to bacterial leaf spot and phytoph- thora capsici have been a very impor- tant in the more humid areas of North America. Allowing more production of fully colored peppers in open field condi- tions has also been successful for us.  Matthieu Nicolas (MN): The Syngenta pepper breeding R&D team is located in Spain, Netherlands, Israel, Mexico, US and Brazil. The breeding objectives are primarily focused at these major markets, but we also drive hard to serve other developing markets such as India, China, Mexico… We have narrowed our focus on blocky types for all ecologies (heated glasshouse, unheated plastic houses,