Best sweet peppers for colder northern climates?

[Ferdzy]

So this years come-from-behind dark horse pepper was a new one to me, Trontarolo. It may be a bit hard to find, but it's Italian and apparently an older variety. Compact plants, but with a good number of quite large peppers that were the only red ones we grew that ripened in time to go into our tomato sauce. Very nice, comparable to Red Shepherd, though perhaps a little smaller. But still, we are talking 8" long peppers here, at least the early ones. Later ones were a little smaller. The last of them are picked but still ripening, so it produced over a long season too.

Most of our peppers got covered by plastic and stayed that way because the weather was so unencouraging but Trontarolo was not among them - it spent the summer in the open and still was a top producer.

[Steph S]

The orange snack peppers which I grew from grocery store pepper seeds did fine indoors but their peppers turned black outdoors and although they set none ripened (not to mention whatever ate them in spite of it). Not stress resistant from a fruit pov.

I bought Red Shepherd grown in Ontario, last year and again this year, what a great tasting pepper.  I seriously bought a basket of them just to freeze for cooking in the winter, they are so better tasting than any others. Thicker and sweeter than Jimmy N, but just as intensely rich flavored.   A google turned up "Super Shepherd" as an OP, IDK if that's the same.  Trontaralo if it's similar tasting has to be well worth it.

I have a new pepper to try next year Tres Long des Landes from a friend in France, which is reportedly early.  And d'Espelette Gorria.  We grew some variant of Piment d'Espelette in the past which was a bit late and not so cold intolerant, but simply delicious.  So I will have to grow both of these for 2024.

[Adam Itsky]

I had no luck in hampshire ripening bells but smaller pointy low spice chilis all did ok. I would focus on Earliness above all since past august the sun drops rapidly even if it stays warm. Realseeds' curly one seems like a good place to start imo. As for shape of the plant, the bigger and taller especially the better to exploit the low late sun angle (across uk it ranges from 18 degrees to 12 degrees! It wont get over a typical fence at that level).

[AndrewB]

Anyone still growing 'Canoncito'? I would be interested in non-crossed seed. I am interested in it as a mild- medium heat pepper, not a heatless pepper though.

I am the steward and plant breeder of the Canoncito pepper in NM (before Wild Garden had it) and was doing a web search for a grant and found this forum. Felt I should answer your question about agronomy. The reason we direct seed the pepper is to keep the taproot integrity in the genetics. When i was doing earlier trials back in 2007 the plants that were direct seeded were stronger, more upright and performed better as far as yield and even resistance to disease in the field. The transplant sets were floppy plants and had less vigor. Not to mention that is the way they had always been grown for over 150 years in this field. Glad Frank is releasing some new work with this pepper, that was the entire purpose for gifting them the seed, so other plant breeders could have access to this pepper to create new varieties from the complex genetics.

Hi All, The Canoncito pepper is from here in New Mexico grown in the same field for over 100 years. It originated most likely in Mexico and in South American and came with the first Spanish explorers in the 1600-1700's to Santa Fe. Grown by the Picuris tribes before the Spanish right above our valley. I have been conserving it for many years but we felt some seed in 2014 should be donated to allow plant breeders to work with it as genetic diverse peppers are very rare. I think this string spoke about Wild Garden seed creating a heat-less sweet pepper. it is sweet even with the heat levels, we do not sell it outside NM otherwise as we are seed conservationists and is grown on the acequias here by traditional farmers, so we maintain backup populations and seed for these growers. We did donate some to Oregon State for trials and Frank Morton is I think on his F3 generation by now, I would encourage you to get some from him as soon as possible since it is in the early stages of acclimating to his climate (only 4 years in) so the genetic diversity should be intact. When we dug up the plants for trials back in 2011-2013 the transplants had a more fibrous root, lower yields and the direct seeded had a taproot similar to a small carrot. It is most likely an F125 generation or more in our area. We do not select for new varieties, but we have seen sweet pepper phenotypes later in the season that are heatless which we include in the population we grow to keep the genetics intact. The entire population shifts with environment and it is something to behold for sure. We do not collect the seed by pod phenotype separate or heat level. We selected for high color, low disease, earliness, good post harvest storage (MT 6 months at room temperature), and pod thickness. It has LT 5% disease and is grown routinely with microbe inoculation to encourage symbiosis.

https://alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/9100/canoncito-earliest-ripe-pepper?page=2

[Tim DH]

Hi Andrew,
     There is a bit of discussion about Canoncito on this forum! Try the thread '2022 Pepper Growouts / Breeding Experiments / Ideas'.

     Over this side of the pond Kokopelli sells it
https://kokopelli-semences.com/en/p/canoncito-new-mexico-fort-early-pepper

Tim DH

Ah! I've just read your later post on that Thread....