Are you wanting to collect seeds? That is the only concern with cross pollination....the fruit produced this season will be true to type.

Although peppers are self-pollinating, visiting insects and wind may cause cross pollination. The International Seed Saving Institute recommends at least 400' apart for absolute purity - hard to accomplish in most garden settings!! Home gardeners are encouraged to plant them as far apart as possible although even a few feet/yards of separation may be sufficient to reduce the risk to acceptable levels.

You could bag your flowers. Many don't like plastic bags, probably because in sunlight, it'll get really hot in there. But row cover material is good.

Don, I hope you were not looking for a short answer. ;-)

As Gardengal stated, cross pollination is only an issue if you intend to save seed. The isolation distances given by most references, though, are for pure seed. You would want pure seed if your intent was to sell or trade seed... but if the seed is strictly for your own use, you could get reasonably good seed by separating two varieties as widely as possible, with other flowering crops between.

That distance recommendation is for open-pollinated plants. However, if you take steps to exclude pollinators, you could save good seed for many varieties, even if they are in fairly close proximity.

Blossom bagging is one method... using a light, air permeable material to enclose the flower. Tulle or floating row cover work well for this purpose. The material must completely enclose the flower; in the case of peppers, that means sealing off the stem above & below the flower. The material should be removed only when the flower drops off, hopefully with a pepper already set. At that point the fruit should be marked (such as with string or a twist tie) so that at harvest time, you know which pepper has pure seed. This is not as hard as it might sound, since a single pepper can produce a lot of seed.

A large-scale pepper grower who posts on GW uses drops of glue on flower buds, to prevent them from opening. Theoretically this would be the same as blossom bagging... but a dedicated bee could still penetrate the bud, so I hesitate to recommend that method. If it works, it would be an immense time saver.

You could also use tents of the same materials mentioned above, to completely enclose the plants. The tent need only be applied when flowering begins, and should be supported above the plants by a cage or wire hoops. Before covering the plants, look closely & remove any open flowers, and any peppers which have already set. Any peppers which set while covered will usually contain pure seed, unless a hole allowed pollinators to enter. This is the method I use, with floating row cover over PVC cages. It is not recommended to enclose more than one variety in the same cage, since any bees that were accidentally enclosed would cross pollinate all the peppers within.

Thanks! To hot for bags and yes this is only for saving seed. My fav pepper (Flamingo) is really hard to find seed for! I always end up with a variety of 4 with no idea which seed is which so I plant 15 plants to get some for sure!

Do you thiink 20 feet is good enough? There are other flowering plants in between.

If you want to be 100% sure you've got the seeds you want, it's not about distance. Too hot for bags? Not if the bags are made of some permeable material like row cover or nylon stocking.

20 feet of distance is too close, regardless of what is growing between them.

Nylon stockings; what an interesting idea... but aren't they famous for running/tearing? ;-)

I agree with Dan. When we say "bags", that does not refer to a pre-made plastic or paper bag... which would indeed heat up & most likely destroy the flower. The "bag" is just a piece of permeable (breathable) material, which will allow air flow & not heat up. The material is wrapped around the flower to keep out pollinators. It could be as simple as a small square of tulle or spun polyester row cover, which is tied, taped, or stapled in place - in such a way as to completely surround the flower.

This year, I am saving seed for several of my peppers. Three varieties will be grown under cages; one will be grown in pots 200' away (and on the opposite side of the house); and the rest will be either blossom bagged, or individually tented. The peppers grown for food only will not be bagged or tented.

Before this year, I never tried to tent individual plants; but this year (except for the caged peppers) all of the plants are supported by small wire "tomato" cages. This makes it easy to place fabric over a single plant. I am covering the exposed wires on top with small-diameter split hose, to prevent tearing.

Many people use the little drawstring, tulle gift bags sold in the wedding dept. at walmart. Or you can stitch up your own.

Dave

Thanks!

My thx too, good pepper info to know. I just grow a couple of typical bells, a hot one, jalo, and a sweet banana. This past spring one pepper plant popped up in the garden and I'm taking good care of it to see what it produces.