Agronomic Performance, Environment-Specific Yield Adaptation, and Economic Risk Assessment of Hybrid Hot Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) Genotypes Across Contrasting Agro-Ecological Zones of Northwestern Ethiopia

Hot pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) serves as a critical commercial cash and spice crop within tropical cropping systems. However, regional yields under smallholder management remain depressed by an inadequate deployment of high-yielding, input-responsive genotypes adapted to specific micro-environments. A multi-location field trial was conducted during the 2024 dry irrigation season to evaluate the spatial adaptation, growth architecture, green pod yield metrics, and partial financial risk profiles of six commercial introduced F1 hybrids ('Amando', 'Ertale', 'Mixitoze', 'Serenade Explorer', 'Sernadie', and 'Vigro') alongside an open-pollinated standard local check ('Markofana'). The genotypes were evaluated using a randomized complete block design with three replications across five distinct agro-ecological zones in Northwestern Ethiopia, capturing gradients from humid lowlands to cool tropical highlands. Combined analysis of variance demonstrated that phenological maturation schedules, plant heights, primary branch numbers, individual fruit weights, and marketable pod volumes were heavily dictated by the main genetic effects (P < 0.01). The genotype 'Amando' exhibited extreme earliness, reaching 90% harvest maturity within 87.20 days compared to 131.73 days for the local check. The F1 hybrid 'Vigro' demonstrated broad, uniform performance across all environments, securing the maximum number of pods per plant (119.72), exceptional individual fruit weight (21.32 g), and the highest cumulative marketable green pod yield (24.07 t ha⁻¹), while minimizing unmarketable fruit accumulation to 0.24%. Step-wise dominance and marginal budget simulations confirmed that 'Vigro' achieved optimal economic returns, yielding a peak net benefit of 1,590,183.00 ETB ha⁻¹ and a marginal rate of return of 566.49% over the traditional production baseline. While these spatial results confirm that 'Vigro' possesses superior agronomic capacity, multi-season testing is necessary to confirm temporal environmental stability within East African tropical systems.