plantbreeding@home #4 - Meet the parents!
Dear plantbreeders,
good news indeed - I think I found the parents for our little hybrid and eventual variety! As you know from the last post, it was decided to breed a sweet and small variety.
If you are following this project from the beginning, you will probably know the candidate for small, it is this little beauty here:
Parent#1: Tiny, yet dangerously spicy...
I had this variety in mind for a long time, as it is truly the smallest pepper I have ever seen. The fruits are only 12mm long and the plant is approximately 30 cms high and wide but bears up to 100 tiny peppers! The fruits are easily dried and can be used nicely in a (black) pepper mill, due to their small size. One thing to notice is their spicyness, which in this case we want to breed out. It is approximnately more intense than a typical Jalapeno, with a sharp onset and very vivid burning.
I was searching quite some time for a suitable candidate for our sweet variety and looked in my archives what I already grew to be able to give you real firsthand experience. After much consideration I chose this little fellow here, currently residing in my garden.
Parent#2: Plenty of sweet and tasty fruits - but not really compact
It is the best sweet variety I ever grew, it is basically a small bell pepper. It has a good taste when green ("fresh" and "green", no sweetness) and turns to a nice sweet bell pepper with its typical aroma when ripe. The fruits are big enough to fill them, but small enough that even small plants will give you a number of peppers (about 30 when grown outside). The plant in the picture has been harvested regularly and still hangs full of fruit, two of these plants are more than enough for my needs. The reason it looks a bit sketchy is actually that I was away for about 2 weeks when the fruits really started to grow and because of sheer number the plant collapsed under the weight. The plant itself reaches about 1m height and 70cm in diameter when planted in soil and grown outside. Here our goal is to keep the fruits and breed out the size. Challenge accepted!
To get a cross as quickly as possible I will cut those plants rigorously and hope that they will form flowers and fruit once more. I will dig out the plant from the garden and put it into my apartement to perform all crossings. I hope to have seeds this way already by christmas, but we will see how the plants will respond to the cutting!
A very nice thing I noticed: As everyone will get seeds for the parent plants as well (we need this as control), there should be something you like, even if you did not vote for sweet or small. As I described above, tha small variety produces small and very hot peppers, while the other parent is without any spicyness. I like this!
Have a great week!
Dysprosium
@originalworks
I like it when people make posts about their real life activities.
Keep it up!
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Hello @ruth-girl,
thank you so much! This activity is only possible through the incredible people participating, as this elevates "just growing peppers" to a sound scientific project. I alone would never have the space to do it, but with many people, it becomes achievable!
Well it takes time and devotion and I believe you must be really thankful to those that support your project! I know it's hard to get valuable help these days!
:D
Is it possible to grow the sweet variation in side ? Since yiu are having this one outside in your garden? You mentioned we need to take the controls with us.
Hey maleja,
yes, it will be possible! If you grow that plant indoors, it will not become this big, it will stay smaller. You will get fewer peppers because of this, but in general this should not be a problem. You can furthermore prune your plants anytime during the experiment to keep it smaller and more compact. No worries! :)