Have you grown peppers in that same soil before?

it is not soil but hydroton. it's a hydroponic ebb and flow system. could the balance of nutrients effect the capsium content?

The only way i've heard that sweet peppers can become spicy in their first year is due to pollen transfer.
Apparently the pollen in hot peppers is also very hot. When this pollen is transferred to sweet peppers from wind or insects, the seeds from the sweet peppers take on the heat from the pollen.

It's this reason that I no longer grow hot peppers close to the sweet peppers. In the past i've had customers at market complain about sweets being hot, but it doesn't happen any more.

-Mark

Pollen transfer won't effect heat...well, unless that transferred pollen crosses with the plant and you grow out that seed. It's not going to show up in the plants you already have in the ground. The fruit formed on a plant in-season, whether crossed or self-pollinated, is an expression of female "parts" already built into the plant's genetics...the placenta, the flesh, etc.

The only place genetic swap/hybridization/uptake takes place is in the developing seed...which won't express itself until it's grown out again.

As far as why your sweet peppers are producing hot peppers...no idea. That's weird...especially known stable types like "Lipstick" and especially spread across many plants. A single plant showing it wouldn't be weird...a sport branch showing it wouldn't be weird...all your plants showing it is weird.

Now...there is a bit of research showing that if a pepper, even a sweet pepper, is attacked by a lot of insects feeding or other injury on pods and infectious microbes (bacteria/fungus/etc) show up, a plant may produce capscium as a defense mechanism...but that one is a bit debated in it's scope when it comes to sweet peppers.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Fri, Sep 20, 13 at 0:55

I think Mark pointed out to a good reason why a sweet pepper cross pollinated with a hot pepper might have some heat.

As I understand, the seeds that produce HOT pepper are also HOT. So when those hot seed are growing in the belly of a sweet pepper(fruits are the mother of the seeds), the seeds can make the adjacent part of that pepper hot too.

Seeds don't contain capsaicin so that don't work.

The placenta and pith around the seeds contains capsaicin which can find their way into/around seeds, but that's a function and property of the given genetics of the female (aka, the parent plant in the case of an initial sweet). It wouldn't be present after an initial cross or as a result of a cross in the plant the cross happens in.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Fri, Sep 20, 13 at 5:43

All peppers were initially hot. That's pretty much assumed to be a given. Sweet peppers are selected and/or discovered cultivated mutants.

It's not unheard of for a sweet pepper to revert "back to hot" or show some signs of heat, though it's not common.

That said, it's extremely odd for a whole slew of different sweet pepper plants to do this all at once...very extremely odd.

Many people have tried to reproduce the "hot peppers near sweet peppers" scenarios in order to figure out if there's an influence, but no one has been able to consistently reproduce this, much less nail down what's happening.

My first question to the initial poster would be...did you get your seeds from someone in trade or a notoriously bad commercial pepper seller like Reimer Seeds? Did they come from a legit clean seed seller? Heat is a -very- strongly dominate trait and contaminated seed that crossed with a plant that has heat has an almost 100% chance of carrying over into the seed's next generation.

I wouldn't have a second question besides "Can you post a picture of your pods so I can see if you're actually growing what you think you're growing?" (which may or may not be insulting to some, no offense) because it's so odd for this to happen over multiple plants. I'm not saying it's not happening...I'm just saying it's beyond the realm of known knowledge and research if question 1 or 2 doesn't lead to an "oh, that's why" answer.

no offense taken, i appreciate all the good knowledge here. i have already seeded and frozen all of the peppers. here are some more details...i tried to start with seeds from territorial but had lots of problems in the spring with my seedlings dying off...so most of my plants ended up being from starts from a local nursery. I had mini bells, sweet bananas, ancho tiburon, jalapa, super chili, anaheim, poblano, (one unknown i think was felicity), lipstick, pimento di padrone, gypsy and hungarian hot wax. i think all of these peppers are pretty easy to ID with the exception of the felicity. anyway they are all in the greenhouse growing very close together in a hydroponic system. i harvested a bunch of them in july and that is when they were all super spicy, especially strangely the gypsy. i seeded them anyway and froze them (and they do mellow over time even in the freezer). then after getting burned all over i took out the jalapa and the hot wax pepper plant. i did another big harvest just last week and they were more like they should be. i am thinking now that maybe i just got some fresh hot wax pepper on me during the initial harvest and kept tasting what was on my hands on other peppers thinking they were all super spicy.

Well the handling of the peppers may explain it.

As far as pollen transfer, the information I got was from Steve Peters, then the Seed Production Manager for Seeds of Change in NM. That was when I was growing large lots of organic seeds for them.

nc-crn, as you seem to think you knows everything about peppers and have chosen to tell me that my information is incorrect, maybe you can share your credentials?

-Mark

This post was edited by madroneb on Sat, Sep 21, 13 at 10:47

My credentials?

BS in horticulture and soil science...professional plant breeder and geneticist (blackberries, raspberries, melons, peppers, corn, soy) for different programs/corporations...hobby pepper breeder (I've released a sweet, Crunch Sweet Orange, into the wild).

And you are positive that pollen from a hot pepper will have no effect on edibility of a sweet pepper that it pollenates with?

Also, fwiw, I'm working on an Anaheim x Cubanelle cross right now. It will be years before it's ready, but I'm trying to coax some very rich flavors with sweetness and a touch of heat out of it.

The pod thickness is stable, which is "half way home" as far as I'm concerned...the flavor profile and pod sizes are still all over the place, though. This one is gonna take many generations. Getting the flavor (heat/sweet/"other" flavors) profile is the most important aspect...I don't care if pod size suffers as long as I can get the flavor aspect correct. I'm shooting for a frying-type with thick walls as far as non-flavor aspects go.

Hopefully, I can release some seed of this one within 2-4 years. I don't have a year-round setup...it's purely hobby breeding based on grow outs + selection with no back-crossing. It's far enough along that I believe I won't have to abandon it (like some projects in the past), but it's still too variable to call it "close enough."

"And you are positive that pollen from a hot pepper will have no effect on edibility of a sweet pepper that it pollenates with?"

I'm really sure...that said, there's still "something" out there causing some of these "bit too often" reported sweet-to-hot reports that people find.

The problem is no one can replicate these sweet-to-hot growing proximity/cross issues that are occasionally reported...and it's been tried/tested.

The female plant (in this case, the sweet) already comes genetically pre-programed to produce the fruit no matter what pollinates with it...much in the same way a cantaloupe can cross with a watermelon and you're not going to get a cantaloupe-tasting/shaped watermelon out of it until you grow the seed out. The placenta, pith, membrane, etc are pretty much the product of the female no matter what crosses with it in the current generation. The genetic information doesn't change the plant...it changes the offspring.

To summarize...given the mystery around it, I guess it could happen...but, myself, I wouldn't bet on it being what's happening. It's generally not how things like that work. It will be nice when someone finally figure outs what's happening in cases like this. Like I stated earlier...it's not common, but not unheard of, for a sweet to "revert" or show some heat...or a limb/sport to show it...but for multiple plants, especially different types...it's quite odd and no one knows for sure what's going on.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Sat, Sep 21, 13 at 17:39

So weird. I grew Lady Bell peppers for the first time this year. They tasted good when they are raw. I made stuffed peppers and they were kinda hot. Not good for me. I have not grown any hot peppers and no one within at least of me has any pepper plants.

Thanks for the clarity, and it's interesting to hear about the breeding project.

The information I was told really had nothing to do with genetics. It was that the pollen itself contains a small amount of capsicum and somehow when it lands and pollenates, the heat in the pollen itself can linger in the developing fruit.
Honestly, I really have no idea of the factuality of this, it may just have been a theory of Steve's.

Anyway, I do know that when I used to grow a lot of hot peppers adjacent to the rows of sweets, I would occasionally get complaints. Now I don't grow hot peppers anymore (just because demand is so low), and never get any complaints.
But there are so many other factors involved. One is that I use to grow more open pollenated varieties, while now I rely mostly on hybrids.

I guess it's going to remain a mystery for a little longer.

By the way nc-crn, are you really suggesting that a watermelon can cross with a cantaloupe?

"By the way nc-crn, are you really suggesting that a watermelon can cross with a cantaloupe?"

I shouldn't have used that example.

They're from the same family, but different genus...and getting a take is quite hard (to quite impossible), yet there have been isolated reports.

I should have just stuck to something like hubbard squash and a pumpkin or yellow crookneck squash and spaghetti squash.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Sun, Sep 22, 13 at 1:20

Your point was obvious, even if the example was off.

I was just wondering if your breeding program was going in some strange directions.
A Charentais the size of a Watermelon, that would be something.

As far as melons, I worked on a "sprite" melon project (melo L.'s) that would grow in humid/wet areas without splitting (or otherwise damaging fruit quality) as a research assistant.

The focus was for field planting. 4 "named" melons have been released via the program (so far), but I came on later into the project and didn't work on all of them (or develop any of them). Some of them have made their way to home gardener seed catalogs, but most are just regional commercial selections.

I've also worked on a luffa project, but I don't want to count that one because that was more of a greenhouse/environment caretaker thing rather than being actively involved in any research worth mentioning...I never collected or created data/material/etc. aside from seed collection (messy and not-so-fun).

I've got much more "cred" with raspberries, blackberries, peppers, corn, and soy professionally.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Sun, Sep 22, 13 at 17:44

Look, I aint no expert horticulturalist but every year for at least the last fifteen years I have grown around two to three dozen pepper plants of nearly as many varieties in separate containers, all grouped together in very close proximity to each other all summer long. The bells produce bells, the poblanos produce poblanos, the jalapenos produce jalapenos, the chilis produce chilis, the habs produce habs, the bhuts produce bhuts, etc. etc. They all produce the fruits I expect to see and taste and I have NEVER noticed any immediate crossing producing unusual flavors, shapes, colors, sizes, or heat intensity.

Needless to say I do not save seed from any of those plants, although that would be a very interesting but involved experiment in itself. Who knows, I could have bred the "perfect" pepper by now. ;-)

Sorry, I just find it hard to believe you are having problems with plants that have been grown from properly isolated first generation seed stock that has been acquired from reputable seed sources. I expect there to be a very simple explanation for your problems...

The only explanation that I can think of is that if all of the peppers were grow hydroponically - in the same circulating solution - some capsaicin may have been released into the solution & taken up by all of the plants. That, or some compound that stimulates the production of capsaicin.

It might be that for peppers grown in close proximity, soil & water - not pollen - is the vector for heat transfer. Purely speculation on my part... I've never tried tasting hot pepper roots (as, I doubt, has anyone else). It might be an interesting experiment to test peppers grown together hydroponically.

Personally, like Soilent_green, I have never observed this phenomenon in mixed plantings of sweet & hot peppers. I grow most varieties (both hot & sweet) in staggered rows 18" apart.

Photos show a Dorset plant and a plate containing a Dorset pepper, a Dorset leaf, and Dorset plant roots. Sorry so dark, was getting late in the day.

zeedman stated, "It might be that for peppers grown in close proximity, soil & water - not pollen - is the vector for heat transfer. Purely speculation on my part... I've never tried tasting hot pepper roots (as, I doubt, has anyone else). It might be an interesting experiment to test peppers grown together hydroponically."

Valid comments. I too figured there was some sort of transference going on. I tried an experiment. From one of my Dorsets I chewed on some of the roots - no heat (but a rather pleasant crisp, watery flavor). Chewed on a leaf - no heat. Chewed on a stem section from a pepper - no heat. Chewed on a piece of main stem from the plant - no heat. Chewed on a flower - got just the slightest hint of heat and a capsaicin taste, unless it was my imagination.

Lastly, I needed to verify in my mind that I was in fact working with a hot pepper so I bit a chunk off the pepper itself. As expected it was nasty, evil, dragon fire-breath deathly hot. Ended up slugging down some Jack Daniels to try to quench the heat. I figured it wouldn't help but there was not much of a downside. :-)

So IMHO my experiment eliminates some of the possibilities. As for me, I question the seed stock.

Please let us know if you figure out what happened.
-Tom

Science at its best. Nice one.

Now that is why I love this forum. :-)

Settles that issue, S_G... I didn't want to try that with my hot peppers, they are just beginning to mature.

I've always grown sweet peppers next to hot and have never had a problem with my sweets turning hot. I have, however, had my hot peppers be sweet before but that only happened early in the season and it was probably due to the fact that the plants weren't mature enough or some other environmental factor (the problem corrected itself later in the season).

My uncle, on the other hand, has warned me not to plant sweet and hot next to each other because it will make the sweet peppers become hot. So obviously this has happened to him before. I don't know the circumstances though.

Rodney

This is an interesting thread! Just for the purposes of discussion, I can tell you that I grew Felicity this year with seed from Territorial. They were advertised as jalapenos with just a touch of heat. They are great plants. I have harvested dozens of peppers from them. But with the exception of two peppers, none have had any heat whatsoever. Of those two, one was what I had expected them all to be, very mildly hot. The other one was so hot, I had to pick all the pieces back out of my salad. I ate them green and fully ripe both. I didn't care for the flavor of the green ones, but the fully ripe ones are delicious. Can anyone explain why the plants would produce all sweets, with just an occasional hot?

Jalapenos are notoriously all over the place with their heat. It's kinda a characteristic of their profile.

It's not uncommon to have low/no heat jalapenos along with normal and hot-as-hell on the same plant harvested at the same time...as well as early season low-heat production.

Why this happens...no one can nail it down.

There's a lot we don't know about peppers. We don't even know how they signal themselves to ripen, for instance. It's known it's not ethylene influenced (or enough of an influence to be noted as an influence), but not much is known about what chemical/physiological signals are present when true pepper ripening is taking place. If this can be found out, and it can be influenced by external chemical inputs (such as ripening tomatoes with ethylene post-harvest), then ripe colored bell peppers could be a whole lot less expensive one day.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Tue, Sep 24, 13 at 18:36

For goodness sake. The more I learn, the more there is to learn....thanks, nc/cm!