Sapporo Pepper - Extra Terius (08/19/2017)** Term 01/07

[drbanks]

This is my third Extra, which I generally use to start new plants.

[MaryL]

I love the Piri Piri name

[Shawn]

Nice variety.  Do you have space for all of them?

[drbanks]

Not really. Yet.

[Shawn]

  You better find places.  Before you know it they will be ready to move

[drbanks]

Well, I have an Extra and two Bounties coming free soon, which should at least cover these, but they're far from all my current attempts to sprout things.

[drbanks]

And the real trick is getting some to even germinate.

[drbanks]

Another issue with this is that three of the pods, the Piri Piri, Rocoto and Malagueta, seem slow to germinate.  Or just might not at all.

I expected the Rocoto to be slow going.  I've got another one of these in my seed starter tray that looks like it's just showing the first signs of a loop way down in the sponge.  Can't say as much for the pod here.

[drbanks]

And another point I forgot:

I added that cherry pepper pod back after I though I'd terminally broken the Cherry Pepper plant I already have in the Kinderpeppergarten, but that plant, despite my dim expectations, has recovered and seems to be growing nicely, so I'm probably going to end up disposing of this freshly sprouted seed here.

Trying to get one of my Aerogarden fan coworkers interested it taking it off my hands, since it seems such a shame to just kill it.

So, so far, I only really need to find space for the Carolina Reaper, White Habanero and Lemon Drop.  If the other three ultimately sprout, I can burn that bridge when I succumb to it.

[drbanks]

Transplanted the Lemon Drop to my Extra Prime, and since I already have a cherry pepper plant going in the kinderpeppergarten, I'm giving the cherry pepper sprout to a coworker (put it in a jar with some clay pebbles to hold it up and some nutes solution from one of my aerogardens).

I have since replanted one with Sport Pepper seeds (since I love hot dogs), and am trying to decide what to sprout next in the other freed up hole.

The Sport Peppers are ultimately destined for my original Bounty, once I terminate the 11 month old Jalapeno plant in it.  The reason for this is that whatever goes into that bounty needs to be a short plant since owing to where I have that Bounty, I can't raise the hood the full 2 feet.

[drbanks]

Piri piri (/ˌpiːriˈpiːri/ PIR-ree-PIR-ree, also spelled peri peri or pili pili, also called African bird's eye chili), is a cultivar of Capsicum chinense, one of the sources of chili pepper that grows both wild and domesticated.



It is a small member of the Capsicum genus. It grows in Angola, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, the tropical forests of South Sudan and the highlands of Ethiopia. It was brought to Goa, India by the Portuguese.

Malagueta pepper (Portuguese pronunciation: [mɐlɐˈɣeːtɐ]), a kind of Capsicum frutescens, is a type of chili widely used in Brazil, Portugal, and Mozambique but also used throughout the Caribbean. It is heavily used in the Bahia state of Brazil. It apparently gets its name from the unrelated melegueta pepper from West Africa (Zingiberaceae).

It is a small, tapered, green pepper that turns red as it matures at about 5 cm (2 in) in length. It has a range of 60,000 to 100,000 Scoville units. Two sizes are seen in markets, which sometimes have different names: the smaller ones are called malaguetinha in Brazil and piri piri in Portugal and Mozambique, and the larger ones are called malagueta in Brazil and Portugal. They are not different varieties, just peppers of different maturities from the same plant.

Capsicum pubescens is a species of the genus Capsicum (pepper), known in Peru as rocoto, locoto in Bolivia & Argentina and as the "Manzano" pepper in Mexico which means "apple" for its apple-shaped fruit. This species is found primarily in Central and South America, and is known only in cultivation. The species name, pubescens, means hairy, which refers to the hairy leaves of this pepper. The hairiness of the leaves, along with the black seeds, distinguish this species from others. As they reach a relatively advanced age and the roots lignify quickly, sometimes they are called tree chili. Of all the domesticated species of peppers, this is the least widespread and systematically furthest away from all others. It is reproductively isolated from other species of the genus Capsicum. A very notable feature of this species is its ability to withstand cooler temperatures than other cultivated pepper plants, although it cannot withstand frost.

Sport pepper: Superficially resembling both Tabasco and serrano peppers, the sport pepper is its own distinct cultivar that is much milder than either of those. It is commonly pickled and used in Southern cooking and on Chicago-style hot dogs.

[MaryL]

How great that your cherry pepper survived.

[drbanks]

So, I gave the cherry pepper sprout to my boss.  The Carolina reaper just got moved to the Kinderpeppergarten, and the Lemon drop has been moved to my Extra Prime.

Leaving three unsprouted pods, and 1 sprouted (the white Habanero), so I just made the command decision to move the too-tall Sapporo over from the kinderpeppergarten to this planter.  it's already over a foot tall.

And in doing so, I learned a few new things, which is a really nice way of saying that I really hope the plant survives.  I'm pretty sure that it will, but I did end up doing non-trivia root damage to it in the process.

My thinking, if the lazy neurotransmitters sloshing around in my head could properly be called "thinking" would be to remove the rapid rooter plug from the clay pebble grow media and put it in a hole in the Aerogarden's grow deck.  It turns out they fit quite snugly without a basket.  In fact, I usually have to cut a flat spot in one side so the drip feed can drain.

Things I didn't know:

First, the roots are going to hang onto the grow media for dear life.  It was nit-picking in the literal sense to get all those marbles separated from the roots

Second, just getting the thing out of the 3" net cup was a hassle.  For whatever reasons, about half the roots tried growing horizontally (I guess plants do that) and managed to crush themselves between the edge of the net pot and the wall of the planter that held the net pot.  Then, a lot of them just got tangled with each other, so extricating the pot itself resulted in some broken off roots.

In fact, just removing the pot from the planter resulted in some broken roots, as they we getting all friendly with the roots of neighboring plants.

So yes, I lost about a quarter of the root mass by the time I got the thing stuck in the Aerogarden.  Which I'm pretty sure it can survive, but it'll probably look kind of puny for the next few days.

And, by the time I got the sponge trimmed down enough that the drip feed wasn't just collecting on top of the plant (with more root damage, of course), the stupid thing fell through the hole, so I had to pull it back up.

Going forward, future plantings will have a smaller net pot about the size of the sponges, and that will sit in the grow media inside the larger net pot.  Nit picking will still be an issue, but I think this will work better.

And maybe pre-trimming the sponge

[MaryL]

Very interesting, Dawn. How is it doing now?

[drbanks]

Seems to be doing ok.  Haven't seen any leaf droop or drop.  A couple more days, and I'll declare it a success

[drbanks]

Sapporo Hot (Capsicum annuum )

This medium-hot pepper is a Japanese specialty. Fruits set downward growing to 5" long. These peppers can be used fresh for cooking if harvested young, while they are still green. Mature fruits are best dried.

Warm season annual

Maturity: Approx. 70-80 days

Height: 24-36 in. (60-90 cm)

Heat (Pungency): Mild (1 to 1,000 Scoville Units)

Usage: Fresh (salsa, salads) Drying Pickling

[drbanks]

It seems to have fully survived the transplant, and after dropping a few leaves (no doubt as a result of root damage), it has started popping blossoms:

[drbanks]

I haven't spoken much about this Sapporo plant, mainly because I was holding my breath to make sure I hadn't killed it when I transplanted it.

Well, I just raised the hood to the maximum height, so I guess it's safe to say that I didn't kill it.

[drbanks]

[drbanks]

This plant is finally setting some peppers. Unfamiliar with the type, I just had to look them up:

This medium-hot pepper is a Japanese specialty. Fruits set downward growing to 5" long. These peppers can be used fresh for cooking if harvested young, while they are still green. Mature fruits are best dried.

Warm season annual

Maturity: Approx. 70-80 days
Planting season: Late spring to early summer

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