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  • From: "Bill Shoemaker" <wshoemak AT inil.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Peppers crossing?/Roger
  • Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 10:11:03 -0600

Paul Bosland, pepper breeder at New Mexico State, commented on this during a
tour of his research on pepper breeding several years ago. His comment was
that, while peppers are technically self-pollinating plants, there is about
5% outcrossing due to insects and some pollen drift. I say that just to
encourage people who are saving pepper seed that using cages or spun-bonded
materials to create barriers to insect transmission and pollen drift can
have a high degree of confidence that they will have truly self-pollinated
seed. And Alison's right, Seed-to-Seed is a very good resource for learning
how to do this properly. One word of warning though. Bacterial diseases of
pepper, primarily bacterial leaf spot, can be spread through these
pollination activities so be very careful to avoid plants that are diseased,
especially leaf spot symptoms.

If you're interested in breeding peppers, you do the same thing to protect
your work. However, you emasculate the flowers you want to cross, and then
introduce fresh, viable pollen from another plant you want to serve as the
male parent. You can do this several times with the same female parent
flower as long as the male pollen comes from flowers on the same plant, or
if necessary, the same variety. You will essentially be mixing the genes
(traits) of those two varieties. Then you begin the hard part; selecting
plants over generations. Your early selections are probably unimportant
because it's difficult to say what will come from the next generation. But
about the 5th generation "clear" differences begin to emerge. As you work
through the next 5 generations, your selections become very important, and
you have to have a clear idea of what traits you're looking for. After 10-12
generations, the seed you collect will be true from year-to-year, and you
will have a stable new variety of pepper, hopefully adapted to your growing
conditions and your market criteria. The organic community is looking for
this kind of effort to create new varieties that are truly bred for the
organic industry. And for the individual, it's a fascinating process. But as
you can see, patience is essential.



-----Original Message-----
From: Wiediger, Alison <awiediger AT HART.k12.ky.us>
To: 'Market Farming' <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Thursday, March 04, 2004 8:10 AM
Subject: RE: [Market-farming] Peppers crossing?/Roger


>Peppers cross readily. To have pure seed in a mixed pepper stand, it's
>prudent to "cage" the peppers to keep the pollinators out. "Seed to Seed"
>by Suzanne Ashworth is the best book in print about saving seed, and has
>great pictures and text on techniques.
>
>Alison Wiediger, Au Naturel Farm
>
>> ----------
>> From: tonitime AT juno.com[SMTP:tonitime AT juno.com]
>> Reply To: Market Farming
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 3:41 PM
>> To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
>> Subject: [Market-farming] Peppers crossing?/Roger
>>
>> Hi!
>> Among all the pepper growers/chiliheads i know, all have said that
>> unlike tomatoes, peppers will readily cross pollinate with each other.
>> They take great care to bag blossoms to save seed that is pure to the
>> strain. Because of this, i have never saved pepper seed - but planned to
>> this year. Were your peppers planted at different times in the bloom
>> cycle? I would love to hear that this crossing is untrue!!
>> Toni
>>
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