Creating new chilli varieties

[Happy Cadaver]

I've been doing a bit of crossing, trying to get some new shapes happening with some rare chillis and some of the normal cultivars and varieties. I did a cross between a C. chinense (martinique Habanero) and C. annuum (Hidalgo) last year, F1 are now fruiting and are basically a mix of the two, sort of like a bullet shape, with slightly less heat than a hab, but the colour change of the hab which looks great. their also pretty tall and nothing eats them which is to be expected of a hybrid. My question is: what is the best way to stabilse traits from the next generation? simply breeding a couple which i like together, or back crossing to the hab?

My next one is a jalapenoXpoblano. Anyone with experience creating new chillis? Auxin?

[Auxin]

See the Capsicum "crossability" matrix at the bottom for guidelines of what will and wont work.

My best advise is grow at least 2 F1 plants and then as many F2s you can. Dont get too firm on what traits you want until all the F2s have fruited, then pick the gem of the crop and decide what traits to breed for in the following generations.

Back-crosses are mainly used in 2 instances. 1) if your just trying to snag a trait or two from one parent while trying to get the final product to be mostly like the other. 2) diagnostic back-crosses, these are to see if a trait is homozygous or heterozygous- the seed from them are rarely grown and the following (or other half of the) crop is from the parent of the backcross crop.

I think onea my friends did jal X poblano but I cant remember who, lol

I have a file of genetic info I've collected over the years but need a win98 machine to open it, damn microsoft I'll post it in the next few days.

[Happy Cadaver]

Thanks Auxin I've seen a rough guide to which species cross but that matrix is good.

I remember seeing a webpage where a guy crossed galapagoense with pubescens, but the matrix says no.

Will post some pics of the crosses i'm doing soon.

[Auxin]

I remember seeing a webpage where a guy crossed galapagoense with pubescens, but the matrix says no.

Actually the matrix says unknown. The biologist that compiled that data didnt do that experiment.

Heres a good example of why I say wait til F2 is grown before deciding how to proceed:

F1 #2 This is the F1 generation of a C. chinense hybrid line I'm working on, one parent was yellow, one red. The fruit were red as expected (red is dominant over yellow) and the fruit was little more than the size of the smaller parent (as expected.. more or less), pod shape was a even mix between the two.

F2 #4 Grown from F1 #2 seed this is the absolute gem of the F2 generation, I unexpectedly was able to retreive the full pod size from the larger parent (supposedly that cant be done with C. annuum, my obsession with C. chinense paid off - it seems to have more forgiving pod size genetics ) and rather than it being yellow or red a unexpected orange trait surfaced from the red P0 ancestor. Hot as a motherfucker (over 300,000 SHU ) and with a superb odor like berries mixed with lemon Overall F2 #4 had a drastically better mix of traits than I hoped for in any of the F2s and it totally changed my ideas of what a stabalised line should be bred for.

Edited May 19, 2006 by Auxin

[Gunter]

Nice stuff!

I love hot peppers and have a collection of seed.

My favorites are C. pubescens and Habs.

[apothecary]

Probably a little late for this season darcy, but the Red Savinas are almost done fruiting, I will definitely send some seed off your way as soon as they are done

[teonanacatl]

wow, one of the first type of plants i started to grow were chillies, when i asked about breeding them people at garden web told me there already was enough varieties and they couldnt help me with what traits were dominant and recessive. damn auxin you seem to be doing well How can you guys be sure that self pollination or cross pollination from insects didnt occur, obviously the 2nd one is easy to stop but im intrested to see how you deal with the first one.

[Auxin]

wow, one of the first type of plants i started to grow were chillies, when i asked about breeding them people at garden web told me there already was enough varieties and they couldnt help me with what traits were dominant and recessive.

its extremely difficult to find just a big list of the dominant/recessive/codominant/additive nature of various non-disease related traits (if you find one tell me) I've been collecting them 1 by 1 for 5 years and have something like 20 on file

Besides, me and my mates at garden web lead a citizens revolt and formed a independant private hot pepper radical faction so gardenweb is missing most of its 50 or so brightest pepper people.... and theres never enough pepper cultivars :D

How can you guys be sure that self pollination or cross pollination from insects didnt occur, obviously the 2nd one is easy to stop but im intrested to see how you deal with the first one.

pocket knife, a tiny spoon, magnifying glass, colored string, observation, persistance... and pantyhose

Selfing is easy- make "socks" out of pantyhose and put it over a branch covered in flower buds, place in a sheltered area with low or no wind. Once several peppers start remove the pantyhose sock, Loosly tie string onto the growing peppers, and when theyre rip you'll know which were protected.

Somea my friends build big box frames and cover em with mosquito netting to self entire plants.

Preventing selfing is trickier, some peppers start releasing pollen even before the flower opens so pick the plant that waits longer before releasing pollen to be the female, If your lucky there will be at least a few hours lag between flower opening and pollen releasing- many C. chinenses are very accomodating in this. Find a flower that just opened or is about to open and has not released pollen, Very Carefully cut off the anthers (male bits) with the pocket knife and cut the petals off, be sure not to disturb the stigma (girly bit). Take your tiny spoon or similar and collect pollen from the male parent, dab the female parents stigma in the lil pile of pollen, Loosly tag the flower with string. If doing multiple crosses using different pollen on the same plant use different colors of string and keep a record of whats what.

Thats my method anyway.

To preserve pollen collect as much as you can in a 10 ml beaker or similar, let air dry for a few hours, transfer to a desiccator with silica overnight, dump into a microcentrifuge tube or similar, put back in desiccator for 2+ hrs, open quickly and close the tube while its still inside, lable tube and put in a ~30ml sealable pill bottle with anhydrous silica or even dry rice, lable bottle, put in box, put in back of freezer... To use remove the bottle from the freezer and let warm to room temp before opening it to get the microcentrifuge tube- many types of pollen can last for years that way.

[Qhorakuna tantani]

I spent ages tryin to find a list of chilli dom/rec genes too... wish there was one. I've always wondered if it would be possible to breed a chilli that has fairly even amounts of every type of capsaicin in it... not just a few, hopefully while retaining its heat.

[Auxin]

Heres a lil bit:

Pepper orientation: Pendant- Dominant Upright- Recessive

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'Non-hot is recessive to hot' (Not that simple but a good rule of thumb).

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size is variable

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Yellow is fully recessive to red

Gold color is recessive to red

orange is recessive to orange-yellow

two independent, fully-recessive genes are necessary to achieve a green when ripe coloration in peppers. One is the cl gene, which retains chlorophyll ("prevents the complete degradation of chlorophyll") and the other is the y gene (y+="red pigment lycopene", y=yellow or orange).

Red mature fruit: y+/y+, cl+/cl+

Yellow mature fruit: y/y, cl+/cl+

Brown mature fruit: y+/y+, cl/cl

Green mature fruit: y/y, cl/cl

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Marbled veriagation is recessive

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'Umbrella' plant form relys on three recessive genes

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Capsaicin content - additive, dominance and dominance x dominance components found to be significant; however the magnitude of additive component was higher

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C. frutescens / C. praetermissum crosses have been obtained- not all of the F1s were pollen sterile

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In simplest terms earlyness is dominant over lateness for harvest times (trait is a composite of dominant, codominant, and additive variables)

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Anthocyanin in plants, flowers, and fruits incompletely dominant. (A. in the style or filament can operate off seperate genes- D/R character of both traits unknown). There is an anthocyanin 'intensifier' gene, D/R character unknown

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C. pubescens corolla anthocyanin produced by a single dominant gene

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Tiny warty bumps on stems, leaves, and cotyledon can be genetic

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Easy pod/calyx seperation gene incompletely dominant.

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pointed fruit apex not fully dominant to blunt

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Pointed apex dominant over indented apex (single gene)

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Non-indented calyx attachment dominant over indented calyx attachment (single gene)

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Yellow corolla spots of C baccatum var. pendulum and C. praetermissum act as single gene dominant in crosses with other species.

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The mode of seed color inheritance in Capsicum was studied via an interspecific hybridization between C. pubescens Ruiz and Pav. (black seed color) and C. eximium Hunz. (yellow seed color). Black seed color was dominant over yellow seed color. The F2 segregation pattern showed continuous variation. The generation means analysis indicated the presence of a significant effect of additive [d], dominance [h], and additive x additive interaction for seed color inheritance. The estimate for a minimum number of effective factors (genes) involved in seed color inheritance was approximately 3.

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a single dominant gene, C, is required for pungent genotypes to produce capsaicinoids.

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Crosses between the wild taxa C. eximium and C. cardenasii and the domesticate C. pubescens most often show hybrid pollen viability greater than 55%

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The wild form of Capsicum baccatum exhibits a high crossability index with domesticated C. baccatum var. pendulum with the progeny typically exhibiting pollen viability in excess of 55 percent

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multiple flowers per node seems dominant in C. chinense X C. annuum cross (2 per node in F1)

Edited May 19, 2006 by Auxin

[teonanacatl]

multiple flowers per node seems dominant in C. chinense X C. annuum cross (2 per node in F1)

i was doing some breeding but not highly specialised and its all gone now though lol. i noticed some plants were able to have more chillies per node and support them, so i bred these ones, i had some that would hold 6+ chillies per node. damn im goin looking for some seeds

[Auxin]

yup, I've seen upto 6 flowers per node but my max was 4 or 5 actual fruits per node. Multiple fruit per node is common outside species annuum with C. chinense having that trait in abundance.