The way I do it is to hand pollinate the flowers that I want to save seed on and after hand pollinating, I cover the flower with a small mesh baggie so air can still get in, but nothing else. After the flower begins to form into fruit I remove the baggie and mark the specific pepper with a small ribbon so when I go to harvest I know which fruit will have true seeds. Hope this helps.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Pepper Guy's Blog

What do you use for the mess bag, and if plants are just feet apart can wind cross pollinate?

Thanks

I have not had good luck with glueing, but what did work very well and yielded more seeds than I could use was bagging the whole plant when it was young and then marking the peppers that had formed by the time I removed the bag. Tulle netting costs about $1 per yard at the WalMart fabric section. The yard piece, folded over and sewn or stapled up two sides produces a perfect sized bag that allows for quite a bit of growth for either a whole small plant or a larger branch. You could probably use duct tape in a pinch instead of sewing. I made some smaller bags for branches but the branches outgrew the bag pretty quickly. You can bag several different plants in a season with the same bag because it just has to be on long enough for you to see a few peppers get started. I marked fruit with peices of red yarn.

Plants that are that close can cross pollinate. What you are doing though is pollinating by hand and then covering the flower to be sure that no other pollon can get to the flower from another plant. I agree that you could also cover the whole plant. That would be easier than covering each flower. Heck, I think I may be covering the whole plant this year. Thanks for the tip!

Here is a link that might be useful: The Pepper Guy's Blog

Thanks for all the great advice, I am going to walmart right now to buy me some tulle netting. Hopefully I will have a ton of seeds to share towards the end of the season! I live in florida and I just finished harding off my plants. Most of my plants are starting to bud.. even my bhut.

Thanks again for all the help
Sam