INTRODUCTION Pepper (Capsicum annum, L., 2n=24) is an important vegetable crop that is widely grown in Egypt as well as in many other countries of the world. The cultivated area of pepper, in Egypt, reached 91404 feddans (fed. 4200 m2), which produced 655841 tons with an average of 7.175 tons/feddan*. This average is relatively low, therefore, much attention must be given to increase it by developing new cultivars or hybrids through sound breeding programs. The popularity of F1 hybrid cultivars are due to their vigour, uniformity, disease resistance, stress tolerance and good horticultural traits including earliness and long shelf life and therefore giving constant stable high yield (Sood and Kumar 2010). Heterosis, or hybrid vigor, is defined as the ability of hybrids to outperform their best inbred parent with respect to growth, yield and other quantitative traits. Heterosis is defined as the excess of F1 mean over the better parent (BP), so called better parent heterosis, or the superiority of the F1 over the mean of the two parents (MP), so