peppers - cross pollination

[fortyonenorth]

I'm a lazy seed saver. I don't bag or cage my tomatoes and peppers. I know that peppers cross more frequently than tomatoes and, sure enough, many of the commercially-purchased pepper seeds that I've grown have been crossed. Here's my question. If I want to save seed and re-grow peppers next year. How many plants should I grow to assure that I get at least one plant that is true-to-type. I know there are many variables, but I'm just looking for a ballpark based on personal experiences. Susan Ashworth says "up to 80% cross pollination" but I have a hard time believing that it's that high. My guess is that its probably in the 25-40% range, but I'd be interested in hearing from anyone with more experience than I.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

It all depends on the number of pollinators you have around. I live in a residential neighborhood with several of my neighbors being the types that spay and poison for everything, so I don't have many. This year I started using a pollinating wand to increase fruit set on my peppers because of it. This year out of 28 varieties planted out, I've only got two rougue plants. Last year I grew 50 varieties mostly from traded unbagged seed and had 5 or 6 crosses.

I've grown plenty of seed traded with people who didn't bag and grew lots of varieites next to each other, and I think I've gotten crossed seed maybe 10% of the time. I've gotten 1 out of 12 crossed/wrong plants from www.chiliplants.com both of the last two years (They are very good about it, send in the details about the crossed plants and you get credit for next years order), and also got some mixed commercial seed this year, so it doesn't appear anyone is doing much better.

Now, if most of your garden is flowers and your neighbor is a beekeeper it's probably a different story.

From traded unbagged seed I typically plan on growing 5 of each variety and figure worst case scenario I'm going to get a couple true to type.

[fortyonenorth]

Thanks for the reply. I'd like to bag next year () so I want to ensure I have at least a few "good" plants. Actually, my favorite peppers this year are crosses, so I want to see if I can perpetuate them.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Originally Posted by fortyonenorth

Thanks for the reply. I'd like to bag next year () so I want to ensure I have at least a few "good" plants. Actually, my favorite peppers this year are crosses, so I want to see if I can perpetuate them.

I was going to grow in isolation cages this year to guarantee pure seed and have my kids help run a pepper seed business as a little life experience lesson. Some of the superhot varieties I grow can go for .50 cents a seed or more, so they could actually make enough to keep them interested.

Unfortunately the actual sewing of the agribon covers was a low priority for the family members who offered to do that.

I've taught myself to use the sewing machine well enough for this project and am going to finish it myself over the winter. I'm also going to try to overwinter the best/most productive plants from this year and root cuttings from them so I can try to grow a large number of them next year. With any luck I can go to small scale commercial sauce production and be making people sweat and shake throughout my local area.

[fortyonenorth]

That sounds great, Mark. Where are you in Wisconsin? Them there Packer fans could use a little sweaten' and shakin'.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

The Appleton area, about 45 minutes from Green Bay.

A good dose of hot sauce can make the frozen tundra seem like the tropics.

[fortyonenorth]

Originally Posted by marktutt

A good dose of hot sauce can make the frozen tundra seem like the tropics.

And there you go - you already have your company slogan!