// Pepper

The Genus Capsicum, commonly referred to as pepper, is a member of the Solanaceae family. The genus includes at least 32 different species, provides a variety of fruit shapes, sizes and tastes and used for culinary, medicinal and ornamental purposes. Total chili and bell pepper production in the US in 2018 was 1.6 Billion pounds on a total of 53,900 acres harvested, valued at $US628 million (NASS, 2018). The estimated world production in 2017 is 130 Billion pounds on a total of 11.5 million acres harvested (FAO). The species Capsicum annuum is the most common of the five domesticated capsicums, including popular varieties of both sweet peppers and hot chilis. It is a mainly self-pollinated diploid species with an estimated genome size of 3.48Gbp.

The pepper breeding and research community needs an affordable and fast means to supplement the publicly known reference genomes with other divergent genomes representing the pepper genetic diversity and a comprehensive means to fully capture and explore the intra species genetic variance in genic and nongenic regions alike.