<p><strong>Background. </strong>Even though many studies have been done in agronomic characters, there is no knowledge about studies that address the genetic effects on the physical and physiological quality of seeds in native populations of Guajillo chile (<em>Capsicum annuum</em> L.). <strong>Objective.</strong> The objective of this research was to identify the effects of general combining ability (GCA), and specific (SCA) on seed quality variables, as well as to determine the type of gene action in them. <strong>Methodology.</strong> F₁ and F2 seeds were analyzed from native populations of chili Guajillo through the accelerated aging test and digitization of seed images. <strong>Results. </strong>The results obtained show that: 1) all the variables were significant for the GCA and SCA, which indicates that the additive and non-additive effects are involved in the genetic control of these characters; 2) In the crosses with the highest average, at least one progenitor with a high GCA effect participated; 3) The effects of GCA were more important than the effects of SCA for the physical quality of seed, length and fresh seedling biomass; 4) In general, heritability in the narrow sense varied from low to moderate (0.00-0.30). <strong>Implications.</strong> The information generated about the non-additive genetic effect on the quality of Guajillo seed, can be used in breeding programs applying the hybridization technique. <strong>Conclusions. </strong>There is no relationship between the best crosses and parents with the effects of GCA high. The parents used in this research have acceptable GCA for most traits, crosses with higher SCA values do not necessarily derive from parents with acceptable GCA values.</p>

The Capsium genus comprises one of the most economically important and gastronomic plant groups in the world. In Mexico, C. annuum one of the five species was domesticated. Guajillo chili belongs to this species; whose main use is dry. In this type of chili, little is known about its genetic parameters. The objective was to identify populations with better plant characteristics and high yield in order to obtain information on his heterotic patterns. For this study, nine populations of Guajillo chili from different entities of Mexico were used, which by means of a partial dialectic design, originated 36 crosses. The analysis of variance showed highly significant effects (P ≤ 0.001) in the general combining ability (GCA) in the parents, as well as for the specific combining ability (SCA) in their crosses mainly in the performance variables. In the variable number of fruit per plant (NFP), a higher GCA was observed, as well as in the cross P1 x P9 that showed higher value of heterosis and heterobeltiosis. The fresh fruit yield, the positive heterotic value, was observed in the crosses P2 x P5, P3 x P4, P3 x P5, P4 x P9 and P7 x P9. While the yield of dried fruit showed the positive and highly significant heterotic and heterobeltiosis value, at the P1 x P9 and P2 x P6 crosses. While the cross P3 x P9 only shows a significant positive value of heterosis.