Fascinating Crosses!

11 years ago

Well, it's fascinating for me, anyway. :)

Due to limited full sun spaces in my backyard, I have no real choice but to place pepper containers close to one another. Most of my peppers are in containers.

On the right, the big ones are Korean Put Peppers.

On the top left are Serrano peppers, normally sized and colored, in a container about 20 feet down the yard.

On the bottom left are Serranos in the ground, right next to the Korean pepper container, that I believe have crossed!

I've only taken one bite of the crossed one just so I can write this post and it's as spicy, if not spicier than the Serranos, but not as long-lasting in terms of heat as a hot Serrano--which is funny because the typical looking ones are less spicier than my normal Serranos. The walls are a tad thinner than I'd expect from a Serrano, thanks to the Korean peppers which have much thinner and softer skins but still crunchy like Serranos.

I think I will keep some of the seeds from the cross Serranos and see what happens. I like the idea of having spicy peppers larger than typical Serranos.

Clearly, I'd be a terrible seed grower, LOL.

I wonder...does it matter which plant got pollinated by which plant? For example, would a Serrano pollinated by Korean be different than a Korean pollinated by Serranos, or would it be identical because of the same genes?

But I find this fascinating that they cross so easily! So far, they all seem to work one way but not the other. The Serranos will cross with the Korean but I don't find any Serranos on the Korean pepper. The Thai will take the Serrano but I don't find any Serranos that are small like the Thais. The Thai also seems to easily be pollinated by the Takanotsume, but all the Takanotsume appear true to type. I can't wait for my Datil and Tabascos to flower to see which way they go.

Anyway, that's a bit of an update of what is happening to my peppers. In previous years, I've never had them cross this much or so easily, but then I always had more space, or only a balcony so that growing multiple types of peppers were out of the question due to space.

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Comments (4)

ronnyb123
11 years ago
Pepper plants don't cross that way. Once a flower is beginning to open or open and the pollen of a flower of another species gets into the first one, thats cross pollination. The pods produce the seeds of the hybrid, which you would have to grow next year. Unless the plant has already been a hybrid, then it may produce hybrid seeds.

BTW, seeds from mostly green peppers more than likely are not viable. They have not finished the process of growing. The pods should be ripe if you want to use it for seeds. My guess is most of those turn red which may be hotter and more flavorful than what you have there.
Sugi_C (Las Vegas, NV)
Original Author
11 years ago
Hi Ronny,

Thanks. For seeds, I know to take the ripened ones, dry, then I have freezed them once completed dried out. That's how I grew my Thai peppers for a few years....well, I call them Thai but it was labeled Jalapeno. Hence, I don't actually know what they are (except that they are most definitely not a Jalapeños!) but yes, I'll definitely let them go red on the plant. I have a lot of these on the plants so I'm not worried that I won't get more. These, I picked because I'm cooking Korean food tonight and for my purposes they have to be green. :-)

My question was whether it matters which plant's flowers got crossed with another. For example, I have Serrano flowers that got crossed with what I presume are the Korean peppers right next to them. If --and it hasn't happened yet, but IF the Korean pepper flower got crossed with Serranos, are they genetically the same hybrids no matter which plant got crossed and grew the pepper?
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ronnyb123
11 years ago
Nope. As long as it was a serrano and a korean cross, if that all you have, and there are no other plants. The pods produced next year will be entirely new. You do not know what you will get once you grow out the seeds. Just make sure to label them as Korean/Thai cross.

Now if you have other plants around, there is no guarantee that it will be only a K/T cross. The only way to ensure that is to cross it yourself. It is actually very easy.

http://fatalii.net/Growing_chile_peppers/Breeding
Sugi_C (Las Vegas, NV)
Original Author
11 years ago
Very interesting, Ronny. Thank you for the link!

I particularly like the chart at the bottom. Without being quite as extensive, I've used the q-tip method for a few of my plants in the past when for whatever reason, the flowers didn't pollinate and were dropping off. I didn't remove all the petals etc., but it was flowers from the same plant. Actually, it was this Thai plant I was talking about. For every bud on that thing the first year, I took a q-tip and mixed it all up to get the flowers pollinated. I think it may have been too cold in SF that year. Anyway, be it due to the weather or my helping hand, it finally did pick up with tons of peppers. I'm still working off the seeds from the first grow.

I do have other peppers here so I guess there is no way to be sure. The Korean pepper, however, is my largest by at least two inches, and given the proximity, I am assuming it's a cross with that. It's just very strange how it will cross one way (A to B plant) but not B to A plant on its own, thus far!