Market Farming

["Shoemaker, William H" <wshoemak AT illinois.edu>]

I've had the Fish pepper Kate cites, with strong variagation. Nice pepper and definitely not serrano. One trait common to serranos is a hairy leaf surface. This Fish does not have that trait.

 

The genetic plasticity of peppers and the abundant breeding, public and private, means we'll likely see strange peppers come along that challenge type and definition. This Fish seems to be one.

 

Bill

William H. Shoemaker

University of Illinois, Crop Sciences

St Charles Horticulture Research Center

535 Randall Road, St Charles, IL  60174

630-584-7254, wshoemak AT illinois.edu

---

From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] on behalf of Road's End Farm [organic87 AT frontiernet.net]
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 5:14 PM
To: Market Farming
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Italian Long Hot Peppers

Ok, I suspect that's not the same pepper as Fedco is selling. I've grown the Fedco pepper, and it didn't look like the ones on the Irinas page; at least, not if the pictures on that page are of that pepper; the two pictures look to me as if they're of two different peppers.

What's going on here may well be an example of a common problem: at some point, different people gave the same name to different peppers; presumably without either of the namers knowing about the other case.

Note that Fedco gives the history of their Fish, and specifically states that it's a serrano.

I can't read the site you linked, so I don't know whether it says anything about the history of their Fish; if you look at the Fedco link, you'll see that theirs dates to sometime before 1900, USA in the Philadelphia/Baltimore area. -- however, while I can't read the Irinas page, I think it says they run 2.5 to 5 centimeters long; I'm not great at metric, but my conversion program says that's roughly 1 to 2 inches. Which is not what I, at least, would describe as a long pepper. Is it possible that you're growing a third cultivar with the same name? Or maybe you're growing the Irinas version and they do just get bigger for you.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly

Fresh-market organic produce, small scale

On Dec 9, 2011, at 5:56 PM, Halstead, Kate wrote:

Nope, it’s not a Serrano type at all. Serrano are much smaller, bullet shaped, and have a much different flavor.

What I have noticed, and the pix from Fedco mimics, is that the peppers are punt when the plant is not well fed and is left to its own devices. Still produces a large amount of fruit, just much smaller in size, with a pronounced curl. When the bushes get plenty of nutrition and water they set larger fruit that is conical in shape like the long hots and a lot straighter.

This Danish site shows something closer to what we get from the plants: http://www.irinas-shop.de/fish-pepper-p-400.html