2022 Pepper Growouts / Breeding Experiments / Ideas

[Garrett Schantz]

There is a Tomato topic like this - figured that I would make a pepper version.

Going to list these in species groupings.

C. annum:

Murasaki Purple - Purple haze foliage, purple fruits, purple flowers, productive - 75 days

Fish - White variegated foliage, Fruit variegated when unripe - 80 days (5,000 - 30,000 SHU)

Chinese 5 Color Pepper - Multi colored fruits, mainly ornamental - 85 days (5,000-30,000 SHU)

Black Hungarian - Black / Purple fruit - ripening to red, purple flowers (More like a Jalapeño than Hungarian pepper) - 75 days (5,000 – 10,000 SHU)

Perfect Sweet Italian Swarm - Performs well in cooler climates, resistant to blossom end rot, strong plants (Unknown days to maturity - probably early, most likely sweet around 0 SHU)

Alpine Poblano - Similar to the Perfect Sweet Italian Swarm (Unknown days to maturity - probably early, around 1,500 SHU as it is a Poblano)

Mountain Roaster - Same story as the Perfect Sweet Italian Swarm pepper (Unknown days to maturity - probably early, most likely sweet around 0 SHU)

Bull Nose - Produces abundantly, smaller bell pepper - 75 days (0 SHU)

Dwarf Tepin Pepper - Member of the glabriusculum subspecies, supposedly a dwarf, heavy producer - 65 days from transplant (50,000 - 100,000 SHU)


C. chinense

Yaki Blue Fawn - Cross between Bhut Jolokia and Filius Blue, which gives it Annum and Chinense parentage, abundant producer, blue fruit, "interesting flavor" - 87 days (150,000 - 600,000 SHU)

Sweet Moruga Chilli - Apparently a sweeter (still hot) mutant version of a Moruga - retains flavor of the original. 90 - 100 days (Unknown SKU, original was around 1.2 million SKU)

Carbonero x BBG7 Chocolate Pepper -

The Carbonero was created by crossing the Bhut Jolokia Carbon pepper and a Yellow 7 Pot pepper and then crossing that with an Orange habanero.

The BBG7 Chocolate Pepper was created by crossing a Red Bhutlah (Bhut Jolokia X 7 Pot Douglah) and a 7 Pot Bubblegum (Yellow 7 Pot X Moruga Scorpion) - this is said to be hotter than any Scorpion or Reaper.

This cross has a bleeding calyx, "chocolate" skin. (Unsure about days to maturity as it seems to be a newer cross, probably a later pepper - Unsure about Scoville rating, probably very hot)


CGN 20800 - This accession originates from a mountainous region, very productive - 90 days (1,000 - 5,000 SHU)

Dwarf Aji Charapita - Pea sized fruit, dwarf - 65 days from transplanting (20,000+ SHU)


Bhut Jolokia is a cross between C. chinense  C. frutescens, varieties with Bhut Jolokia in their parentage probably have some great genetics.


C. baccatum

Aji de Colorado Alpino Pepper - Highly productive, tolerant of cool soils - Unsure of days to maturity, probably earlier than most baccatums (Unsure about SHU - probably has some heat)

Sugar Rush Peach Stripey - Striped mutant of the Sugar Rush Peach - fruits are variegated when ripe, do not appear to have variegation on leaves like Fish - 80-100 days (100,000 to 150,000 SKU)


C. Flexuosum

I am growing this species from three different sources, two appear to be sweet - another seems to be "spicy". The species is generally very cold tolerant.


C. chacoense

C. exile - Probably a subspecies of C. chacoense - Unsure of days to maturity (8,000 - 15,000 SHU)


C. pubescens

Mini Olive Rocoto - Green when ripe mutant, black seeds - 80 - 100+ days (500 - 4,500 SHU)



I will post about breeding plans in the next post.

[Garrett Schantz]

Both of the "Dwarf" peppers appear to have a lower days to maturity than most peppers. This could be due to the plants growing to a certain height, stopping and then focusing solely on fruit production.

Crossing the Dwarf Tepin Pepper with Perfect Sweet Italian Swarm - Alpine Poblano or Mountain Roaster could be interesting. Of course the dwarf plants would also need to be "stocky" to prevent the branches from snapping.

Carbonero x BBG7 Chocolate Pepper x Yaki Blue Fawn could be interesting.

A cross between the CGN 20800 and Dwarf Aji Charapita could similarly be quite nice. The collection location for the CGN 20800 was:  "Latitude / Longitude: 4.9 / -58.9, uncertainty 424770 meter" This could indicate that the pepper has some cold tolerance, I am unsure about the Dwarf Aji Charapita's origins but it is a dwarf and could work well with a cold tolerant plant.

A cold tolerant chinense could have different cold resistant genes than the other species, unless it crossed with one of them at some point.



I will of course be attempting a hybrid between Aji de Colorado Alpino Pepper and Sugar Rush Peach Stripey. Normally I don't grow too many variegated peppers due to the foliage potentially weakening the plant - Fish peppers also only show their variegation on the fruit when under ripe. But, the Sugar Rush Peach Stripey shows it's variegation when ripe - which makes it much more marketable(This is a spicy pepper which is eaten when ripe). It also doesn't have the variegation on the foliage - meaning a healthier plant.

Aji de Colorado Alpino is earlier, more cold tolerant than typical baccatum varieties due to constant selection.


The Mini Olive Rocoto is green when ripe - this would be an interesting trait to have in a Bell Pepper or any other pepper really. The green coloration could include a different flavor when ripe.

The problem is that it's a C. pubescens, this means that I may need a bridge to move it over to C. annum. If I am moving it over to C. annum, I would probably cross this variety with more cool tolerant pubescens along with larger fruited types. Afterwards I would select for black seeds as well.


C. exile / chacoense could be interesting to hybridize as well.



My main reasoning for growing a few different C. flexuosum accessions / varieties is due to it being used as a "bridge" species. I also want to see if any of them are more disease resistant, cold tolerant etc. It also of course has issues with self incompatibility, which could be interesting to work with as well.

A bridge species pretty much means that I could use to bring together something like C. pubescens and C. annum or C. annum and C. chinense. Having multiple accessions could help out a bit with this.


Before attempting the bridge, I want to get the best of what the other species have to offer, epigenetics turned on, most cold tolerant accessions, earliest varieties, traits not found in other species (Variegated ripe fruit, green when ripe fruit, anthracnose resistance etc).

The potential as a bridge could be linked to the "troubles with self incompatibility". If so, I will select for it in the hybrids. Which may not be easy because I would be growing multiple hybrids... 

Yaki Blue Fawn is descended from Bhut Jolokia and Filius Blue - Bhut Jolokia is an Annum x Chinense. Filius Blue is an Annum. This variety could potentially work well as a bridge. Not very hot in comparison to Bhut Jolokia (Still quite hot).

I might try out a Yaki Blue Fawn x C. flexuosum just for fun. Could try using it to bridge over one of the C. baccatum varieties. Doesn't a blue - white variegated pepper sound nice?

Bhut Jolokia seems to work somewhat well enough as a bridge from what I can tell.


If all goes well, I will be sure to post updates here.



Videos on the dwarf types:

Dwarf Aji Charapita
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0-9uipYiMI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI_zvCs1h10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBQkRs_IuU4

Dwarf Tepin Pepper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1sXSqsooJQ

Can't find much on the Dwarf genetics, these could have different genetics that cause them to be dwarves, I don't know.

[Garrett Schantz]

Found this chart on a Homegrown Goodness forum.

This helps map out most of the Capsicum lineages.


Original source for the image also has some fun information.
https://www.infernochili.net/?page=villichilit

Attempting a 2n=26 Floradade tomato hybrid with a 2n=26 pepper would be fun.

[Nicolas]

Some interesting traits combination : https://www.facebook.com/BruggerKlaus/posts/6067660329973141

[Mikkel ImGrimm]

I have had good experience with Canoncito Pepper. It is a very early variety, suitable for cool summers where other peppers do not really want to grow. The degree of pungency is very diverse, there are also plants without pungency. Might be worth to do some crosses with it.
Some of my fruits,

[Garrett Schantz]

I have had good experience with Canoncito Pepper. It is a very early variety, suitable for cool summers where other peppers do not really want to grow. The degree of pungency is very diverse, there are also plants without pungency. Might be worth to do some crosses with it.
Some of my fruits,

I looked into this pepper a bit, found the Homegrown Goodness page for it.

Seems to have precocious(early) flowering, early ripening fruits. Also seems to have been direct sown in a place with a 3 1/2 month long growing season. Taproot was mentioned to play a large role in the earliness - direct seeded plant could select away from the taproot. A post also mentioned that one of their plants survived 30.2F / 1C.

65 days was mentioned for the time it took for the fruit to ripen. Seems to be the same as the "dwarf" peppers.

I am unsure if any of the other early peppers that I posted have these traits as well. I should probably get seed from multiple sources as some growers could have already selected away from certain traits.

Appears to be a C. annum. Same species as most of the early varieties from Wild Mountain Seeds.

Should be fun to work with.

[William Schlegel]

I grew Canoncito last year. It was fun. I want to find something to cross with it. Saved lots of seed, which weirdly came from the transplants not my direct seeding experiment. I want to work with it more.

[Chad Meyer]

Have you considered any of the (traditional or modern) New Mexican chile varieties (all C. annum)?  There's still a fair amount of diversity in the traditional landrace chiles (generally named after the town/pueblo where the seeds were originally collected).  There is some color variation among the kinds, though mostly green->red (some darker with purples).  The modern improved varieties are bigger, more vigorous more uniformly fruited, etc., but they are also a little more picky about their environment.  The landrace chiles grow well with little/irregular water, generally don't exhibit blossom end rot, and tolerate poor soil.  They vary in elevation; the Jemez variety started around 7000', most of the other traditional varieties (Chimayo, Hernandez, Santo Domingo, Nambe) come from around 5500-6000'.  They travel well; my sister in Iowa grew some and they were bigger than anything that I could grow up in the mountains!  They tend to end up more mild in better soil with more rain, if that is a concern.

The modern varieties have their benefits as well.  There are varieties bred for color rather than flavor (yellows, oranges, purples).  They tend to be bigger plants and set bigger chiles.  I think at least one of the "traditional" named varieties likely has some commercial ancestry.  But, I find that in my own garden, the traditional varieties do well, and the modern varieties can be more hit-or-miss (some have done great, some have blossom end rot when the monsoons are in full force). 

[Garrett Schantz]

Doe Hill Sweet Pepper and Cañoncito Field 7 Landrace Hot Pepper arrived today.

I might look at some of the other landraces in the future, probably pushing my grow light space as is.

Some videos / images of the Cañoncito appear to resemble the "dwarf" varieties that I posted about before - the growing pattern could be tied to the earliness to some extent.

Doe Hill is supposedly quite early. Might as well see if it contains anything useful.

Edit: Got around to checking the mail when I got home. A few other seeds came in.

C. flexuosum, mini olive rocoto and sweet moruga.

Appears that I received some extra seeds as well - a variety called "Peppadew", most likely the pepper used for a South African canning company. Also received Capsicum cardenasii.

Capsicum cardenasii is closely to C. pubescens. Appears to be resistant to Tobacco Mosaic Virus.

The whole eximium - baccatum groups appear to be more or less self-incompatible. They also have problems crossing to the most commonly cultivated species of peppers.

Unsure if Self incompatible C. flexuosum accessions would work as a bridge or not. Either way, a nice gift - hopefully the seeds all germinate.

[Nicolas]

@Garrett what are your sources of C. flexuosum ?

[Nicolas]

We have recently developed a framework to describe flavour in sweet peppers (C. annuum) and constructed a population of near-isogenic lines (NILs) to capture flavour components from a hot C. baccatum var. pendulum accession (PEN45) in a C. annuum background. Research on this NIL population revealed several QTLs that influence fruit flavour by altering either taste, smell or texture of the fruit. In particular, presence of a QTL located on linkage group 3 of PEN45 resulted in an aroma described as "tropical fruit aroma". 

https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/20183245261

[Woody Gardener]

GS: "Doe Hill is supposedly quite early. Might as well see if it contains anything useful."

Doe Hill was the winning pepper in my sweet pepper trials. early, productive, tasty, and has high levels of lutein.

[Garrett Schantz]

@Garrett what are your sources of C. flexuosum ?

SmallIslandSeedCo, HRseeds and Welsh Dragon Chile.

Going to screen them all for cold hardiness.

SmallIslandSeedCo's type apparently has a bit of heat -cayenne like heat according to them, along with a fruity flavor.

HRseeds type is probably 8,000 SHU. Probably varied a bit.

This species has problems with self - incompatibility, these will probably all hybridize readily.

Seeds are quite annoying to source.

[Greenie DeS]

I had these convenient pepper plants sitting on my windowsill and my tomatoes are doing nothing indoors, so I crossed my most reliable annuums Matchbox (OSSI, from Heritage Harvest) and Black Hungarian (also Heritage Harvest) in both directions. Both are pretty bomb-proof and produce even in my cool summers, so I can't wait to see what I get out of them. It's nice to have something that does well in my dry woodstove-fluctuating indoor winter temps as well as outdoors.

Meanwhile I'm waiting for my baccatums and flexuosum to germinate and looking into seed for high elevation med-low heat everythings. I seem to be falling down the pepper rabbit hole.

[Greenie DeS]

Final grow list is waiting on things actually arriving here; I have a lot on the way. Meanwhile:

Annuum
Matchbox, OSSI pledged and in 1 gallon pots on my windowsill, is absolutely covered in flowers and tiny starting pods. These plants are just shy of a year old now, they spent their summer on my deck and have had a lot of variation in temperature, light, water, and feed. Currently my humidity is below 10% and one side of the plant is about 5C against the window while the other side fluctuates between 15c and 30C with my woodstove cycle. There's a hint of difference between the four plants: one is a touch more susceptible to dry air/spider mites, another has more hanging/drooping branches. The fruit is largely the same; I haven't checked to see if it's the same heat level though. I love this plant and intend on crossing it with everything.

Hungarian black is in a 3 gallon pot but it's the same age. It is in a west window with no lights on it, though there's snow outside the window reflecting some light up. It's also covered in bloom.

The Hungarian black x matchbox cross has taken.

The Matchbox x hungarian black cross probably took but the marker for which pods they were fell off and the plant is covered in so many pods, so I need to do this again. The flowers are smaller and more delicate to work with and to mark.

I'm preparing a big grex with high concentrations of Matchbox, black hungarian, doe hill, and paprika #8043 (these ripened reliably for me last year) plus a ton of other stuff that mostly hasn;t arrived yet. I'm thinking of doing some real close spacing in blocks with some pollinator-attractors in there to get things mixed up.

Pubescens etc
My c pubescens are flourishing under lights in their 750ml pots. I have Ecuador Red, Montufar, Aji Lucento, Mini Olive, Aji Largo and there's  stray Aji Charapita (chinense) in there. The pubescens are mostly at 8 true leaves now and are tremendously well-behaved, nice and compact and maxing out around 3-4" tall. Lucento is starting some side-buds in its leaf axils and Mini Olive is slightly darker green and more rugose but otherwise they're all very similar.

Aji praetermissum and flexuosum haven't come up yet.

Seed leaves on some baccatums but they're not differentiating from any other peppers yet, except they've been pretty fast to come up.

Altogether I'm very happy with the performance of all these peppers indoors and I can conceive of working up several winter-friendly hanging-basket-friendly varieties that can overwinter in my west window without lights.