Morpho-agronomic description of local red chili ‘Justiber’ based on limited field observations in North Sumatra

Abstract

Local chili pepper germplasm is an important genetic resource for crop improvement because it may harbor useful phenotypic variation in vegetative vigor, plant architecture, reproductive timing, and productivity. This study examined the morpho-agronomic traits of the local red chili ‘Justiber’ as preliminary baseline information for future descriptor-based evaluation and population expansion. The study was conducted in Simpang Selayang Village, Medan Tuntungan District, North Sumatra, Indonesia, from January to March 2026. The observed parameters included dichotomous height, plant height, stem diameter, days to flowering, number of branches, leaf length, and days to first harvest. From an initial field planting of 30 plants, only 10 normally growing plants that could be monitored consistently until first harvest were used as observation units; stunted or abnormal plants were excluded and are acknowledged as a limitation. This exploratory study did not compare treatments or genotypes; therefore, the data were analyzed descriptively using the mean, standard deviation, range, coefficient of variation, and 95% confidence interval. The results showed mean values of 77.40 ± 9.70 cm for plant height, 9.40 ± 0.97 mm for stem diameter, 57.00 ± 1.49 days after planting for flowering, 4.70 ± 1.25 branches, 8.10 ± 0.76 cm for leaf length, and 89.70 ± 1.64 days after planting for first harvest. The highest coefficient of variation was observed for number of branches (26.63%), whereas days to first harvest showed the lowest variation (1.82%). These findings indicate that the observable variation of ‘Justiber’ was concentrated mainly in vegetative architecture, while reproductive timing was relatively synchronized.