Sweet Heat Peppers [1/13/2021] [TERMINATED]

[mike]

I am starting Sweet Heat Peppers in a Farm Plus tonight. I'm in the rinse cycle now. I'll plant the seeds before bed.

[Sher]

Great start! I expanded the photo and was able to see the tiny pepper plant under the label of the fourth one.

[Shawn]

On their way ...

[Shawn]

Mike, are you still growing the Sweet Heats from Park's or are you trying a new vendor?  I am going to be growing my=ore myself in a month.

[mike]

No, they were out of stock. I bought them from Seeds 'n Such.

[gsaxon]

I recently had an issue with fungus gnats (this week) and I was only able to pick three sweet heat peppers before terminating the project. Unfortunately I never got to see how well the sweet heats would turn out. I just ate one of them and it was a great pepper. I have never eaten one before. I am currently harvesting the seeds and will try experimenting with growing sweet heats with my own harvested seeds. I have never done this before, so I am excited to see if they sprout and how they will turn out. I will probably try to plant a few seeds in a few weeks after the seeds completely dry out. Has anyone tried harvesting their own seeds before?

[mike]

Yes, many times. You'll need to consider that Sweet Heat peppers are a hybrid pepper. Using seeds from a hybrid can give you unpredictable results. You might get a hotter pepper or it may not germinate well. There are dozens of other possibilities with hybrid seeds. Heirloom seeds are what you want for predictable results.

[Shawn]

Jan 22, 2021 23:11:27 GMT -5 mike said:

Yes, many times. You'll need to consider that Sweet Heat peppers are a hybrid pepper. Using seeds from a hybrid can give you unpredictable results. You might get a hotter pepper or it may not germinate well. There are dozens of other possibilities with hybrid seeds. Heirloom seeds are what you want for predictable results.

Mike, if you do not mind I am going to place this as a separate thread in the Pepper section to explain it to others... unless you would like to and beat me to it.

[mike]

No, please do.

[gsaxon]

mike that is a very good point. I did not even think of the fact that the peppers might be hybrid. I guess all I can do is try at this point and see how they turn out. I am not sure if they were heirloom or hybrid in the first place. So, if a seed was originally an heirloom, you can always harvest the seeds and it will essentially produce the same variety without any changes?  If so, that is really important to know when purchasing the seeds. I appreciate your expertise mike.

[ERR0R1755]

Hybrid seeds are the result of crossing two different varieties - when you harvest seeds from a hybrid, the resulting genetics can be any mix of traits from either parent. The classic example is with tomato hybrids, where some of the commercial varieties have bad traits on both parents, but the hybrid has only the good traits - so taking seeds from that can result in bitter tomatoes or plants that take more than 150 days to put out flowers.

This year I had taken some seeds from a store-bought large tomato as an experiment and planted a few. The one produced long eggplant-shaped tomatoes (that unfortunately never made it to maturity), and the other produced a lot of delicious cherry tomatoes. Both plants were from the same tomato, and neither had the same shape/size as the parent.

With heirloom/open-pollinated seeds, the genetics are stable from many generations of breeding them and picking for certain traits. Unless your plant gets cross-pollinated by a different plant (which you would have to do manually indoors), the seeds will always be true to the parent.

[Shawn]

Jan 23, 2021 12:24:34 GMT -5 ERR0R1755 said:

Hybrid seeds are the result of crossing two different varieties - when you harvest seeds from a hybrid, the resulting genetics can be any mix of traits from either parent. The classic example is with tomato hybrids, where some of the commercial varieties have ..(Snipped)...

Funny, I just made a post about this LOL....  You may also want to make notes on that one as well

[gsaxon]

ERR0R1755, thanks so much for the detailed explanation. That makes total sense to me. You definitely need to be super organized when planting to remember the exact variety and type so that you can have the expected results that you want. The alternative is to always buy heirloom seeds so that you never need to worry! In that case, however, you may be limiting your choices.

[mike]

Remember folks, do not be afraid to use hybrid seeds from a reputable vendor. You only need to be concerned trying to grow new generations of plants from the seeds of the fruit you grew. Hybrid plants typically germinate better, are prettier and taste better, too.

[Shawn]

Jan 25, 2021 5:27:52 GMT -5 mike said:

Remember folks, do not be afraid to use hybrid seeds from a reputable vendor. You only need to be concerned trying to grow new generations of plants from the seeds of the fruit you grew. Hybrid plants typically germinate better, are prettier and taste better, too.

Thank you Mike.  I have learned this from you and I have to agree that the majority of my hybrids do well.

[gsaxon]

mike, you make a very good point. There are a lot of good seed vendors online. It is pretty easy to get good seeds from any of the vendors online. Last year, due to Covid, it was pretty challenging for me to find the seeds I wanted in the stores, but online, I had no problems.

[mike]

I trimmed these down to one plant per pod.

[Shawn]

Happy seedlings

[mike]

[Sher]

The three on the right are doing especially well.