indoor chilli breeding experiment

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

hey guys, i have about 8 chilli strains going at the moment and have been tossing up the idea of doing an indoor breeding experiment..

basically at the moment my mindset is let all 8 varieties go wild, inside a controlled 400watt tent with a veg/flower period totaling 12 weeks.

has anybody ever let so many variety's crossbreed like this before, or have any opinion with the outcome of the fruits and seeds produced...

its all just an experiment to me, a bit of fun!

d00d

[Bert&Ernie]

that sound really cool mate and id love to here how it goes for you.

great idea!!

and if your gunna be giving some seed's away im up for a few xD

[Yawning Man]

What varieties brother? Trinidad scorpion by any chance? I'm wondering what predominate traits will emerge. Having all the plants in the one spot might only yield one or two types of new varieties if the genetics of one species is stronger than the others. Sorry, I don't mean to be so negative.

It is a cool idea haha. And if you somehow made a hotter chilli that'd be awesome. My girlfriend actually bought a chilli plant from a hardware store and we discovered that the fruit doesn't have any seed. Weird. I'm talking terminator genes son.

Edited February 12, 2012 by Yawning Man

[naja naja]

without insects, I don't see much pollenating going on. You'd have to do it by hand, in which case I'd recommend to label each flower u pollenate with the pollen donor variety name, so in the even theat u do manage to x them u know the parentage. Immasculating the flowers would also prob be prudent to prevent self pollenation if they are self fertile. Which I assume they are.

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

for pollination i have read chillies work with wind equally as insects.. I was hoping to use fans to aid in the pollination

As for stronger genetics, yeah im sure this could be the case, maybe collecting pollen, mixing it together then applying to slowers would be a better options

[Chef]

This is an epic idea in my opinion imagine the kick ass genetics you could get in the end!

Hat off to you my friend

[Jonstn]

I've been thinking about this too over the past week, will be watching keenly on your progress

Would love to be able to make my own unique chilli Next year I'll have enough to play with.

​

Thinking of doing a little aero setup just to speed up the whole process a buttload

Good luck dood!!

​

[planthelper]

i like the idea aswell, and chance pollination can yield, very interressting new plants, without much work.

but the downside is, that you will never know, what realy happend, and you will not be able to, reproduce your results.

naja's post #4, is the other methode, you will know what happend, but it's far, far more work.

now once you produced something you want, you can either, clone the choice plant, or breed it again, knowing and using the same parental lines, or you can try, to stabilise the genetics, by 5 generations of inbreeding.

breeding plants rocks!

it's what our society, is based on.

without breeding and selection, there would be no progression of the human race.

[Auxin]

I'd say go for intentional defined crossbreeds.

Ironically right now I have 18 petri dishes going so I can begin to revive my aged Capsicum collection this year, including resuming work on my own hybrids / new cultivars.

Home grown chillies are great fun, and afford a much more diverse source of spice than can be found in stores.

Good Old Topic

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

thanks everybody for your input! here is what im thinking now yas have given me some ideas:

i will place each plant in its own housing of mossie netting to stop any pollination from the indoor fans and collect pollen from each strain, labeling them as appropriate. I will use glass vials to store the pollen and to share around if its desired too!

once i have collected the pollen I will attempt to cross each strain with 1 or 2 flowers on each strain. this will yield a massive amount of different breeds and I will be able to pin point what fruit is what..

auxin, that thread is very interesting thank you for resharing with us! i like the part about waiting to select your traits etc you wish to carry on from the f2 seeds, everything i'd read on plant breeding told me to avoid f2 plants in general... unless im missing something,which i probably am :-P

d00d

[Auxin]

People avoid F2+'s and use F1's if they want a very uniform, nearly identical, crop with a bit more vigor. F2's are an explosion of diversity, not good if you want uniformity and predictability.

If people want a new variety all together they keep breeding toward F10 with an eye on establishing consistancy between generations.

Like I'm up to F4 on a variety-to-be that I bred with its odor as the main goal. The best of the F3's actually smelled better than the F1's and had almost regained all the size and vigor of the F1.

[Chef]

Is it to much to ask d00d if i can buy some of these mutant seeds from you once they have spread in your jungle gym?

[planthelper]

thanks everybody for your input! here is what im thinking now yas have given me some ideas:

i will place each plant in its own housing of mossie netting to stop any pollination from the indoor fans and collect pollen from breeding told me to avoid f2 plants in general... unless im missing something,which i probably am :-P

d00d

 

i don't know what mossie netting you are refering to, but it would have to be very special, i guess,

pollen grains in general, a some of the smallest particals around, i think you can't keep your plants sterile that way.

but maybe i learn something here.

People avoid F2+'s and use F1's if they want a very uniform, nearly identical, crop with a bit more vigor. F2's are an explosion of diversity, not good if you want uniformity and predictability.

 

may i add, because my catha's are f2's, that if you breed perennials, which you can clone with ease, a f2 is ideal, for the reasons given above! but for plants which get probagated only by seed, f2 are avoided.

but as with everything in horticulture, there is always a seemingly paradoxical twist.

even with chillies a selected f2 might be, wellcomed, if it got very desired traits, but this f2, would be very unstable, and probably, it would be hard to, reproduce the traits (but possible, because it's only a nummber game!).

[2Deep2Handle]

would one notice any difference in the fruit pod formation of a chilli that had been crossbred? ive seen some of the fruits on my numerous like 30 species that look nothing like the rest of the fruit on the same tree, and was wondering if it could be that something else pollinated it? or did it jsut grow fucked?

[Auxin]

It just grew fucked

A pepper will look the same regardless of what sort of pollen pollinated the flower.

Now, graft induced variants are a different matter. In highschool people are taught that grafting will have no genetic effects, this is sometimes not the case and Capsicum is one such instance. You can graft two varieties together and fruit formed on the scion may absorb some heritable traits from the stocks genetic makeup.

Funny how many things learned in one phase of education is unlearned in the next

[planthelper]

. In highschool people are taught that grafting will have no genetic effects, this is sometimes not the case

i noticed that, once in a while, a plant which had been cloned, displays different traits.

i guess, this happens when the dna get's damaged (in my case, those plants, looked only halve as good as the mother plant, where the cutting came from).

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

i don't know what mossie netting you are refering to, but it would have to be very special, i guess,

pollen grains in general, a some of the smallest particals around, i think you can't keep your plants sterile that way.

but maybe i learn something here.

 

good point p.h. I have read in various books including the seedsaver handbook that to stop chillies breeding insect mesh will do the job. i believe all the sources were talking re outdoor growing too..I will look into various different ideas and post back on here.. the more i plan and get my shit together for this the more technical it gets! i was hoping my initial idea would satisfy me, but after speaking to you guys i need to up the anti!! :-D

my next post will have my latest proposed plan, hopefully tonight! and chef if i get something worth you having, you can, for free

d00d

[2Deep2Handle]

this scares me to think my lophs are absorbing what ever alkaloids may be present in peres?

so could one theoretically raise alkaloid levels by grafting to stock that has higher levels of the same alkaloid in question?

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

hmmm i dont think so.. Reason for thinking is hops doesnt get thc when grafted to cannabis? Maybe alkaloids are different, anyone prove me wrong??

D00d

[naja naja]

i noticed that, once in a while, a plant which had been cloned, displays different traits.

i guess, this happens when the dna get's damaged (in my case, those plants, looked only halve as good as the mother plant, where the cutting came from).

 

I think this would be wat is refered to as a bud sport PH. If u look into Navel oranges, they all origonated from a single tree which apparently is still alive. And all navel selections are bud sports of that single tree. same goes for many fruit trees. There's thousands of navel bud sports world wide, they vary in taste, skin thickness, acid/sugar ratios, flesh colour, maturing times, desiese resistance, taste, etc but are all bud sports origonating from a single Orange tree, once upon a time. No known navel selections arte the result of sexual reproduction.

[bℓσωηG]

I know there have been many questions on breeding/crossing chiles over the last couple of days and I thought it would be nice to post a guide of sorts to show those who are interested in breeding one way to accomplish it.

These pictures are not from me but are courtesy of www.fatalii.net

First, let's get to know the anatomy of the chile plant flower

The Sigma and Pistol are the female parts of the flower. The Stamens are the male parts of the flower

The next step is to choose the 2 compatiable types you would like to try to cross (I will post a chart below that shows which species are compatiable)

Choose the type you would like to be the female (mother) of your cross. Select an UNOPENED flower from your mother plant. If you wait until the flower is opened, there is a chance that it could have already been pollinated, either by another plant or itself.

Using tweezers, carefully remove the petals from your unopened flower. Sometimes a magnifying glass is needed. This process of removing the petals and stamens is called emasculating.

After all the petals are removed you should see this:

Next, using tweezers, carefully remove all of the stamens. Be extra careful not to damage the stigma or pistol

After all of the stamens are removed you should see this:

You now have a purely female flower.

Next step is to get yourself a q-tip and rub it around the center of the opened flower on your father plant. You then want to take the pollen on the q-tip and transfer it to the pistol of your pure female flower.

***You may want to emasculate more than one unopened flower on your mother plant to increase your chance of success.***

After this is done, you should label or mark the flowers on the female plant with the species you crossed and any other information you may need.

If the cross is successful you should see a pod start to form. if the flower drops off then you will know the cross didn't take. If this happens, it does not mean that the 2 species cannot cross, it just means that it did not take on that particular flower. Don't give up if it doesn't take on the first time.

The following chart shows which species will cross.

If you are lucky and do happen to get a pod from a flower you crossed, you will not be able to tell a difference. The genetic information for the cross is stored inside the seeds of that pod. You would have to harvest those seeds and plant them to see the results of your cross.

I hope this helps answer some questions anybody may have had about breeding chiles.

Thanks for looking,

Edited May 9, 2013 by bℓσωηG

[Stillman]

Its probably been said above BlownG has the right idea .You will have to emasculate the flowers and do it manually to be sure otherwise you will have to grow out a miilion seeds from all the pods. Using wing will probably just make it more self fertile through disturbance. Do some big crosses C chinensis to frutescens is a good one. its how the trini scorpion came about.

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Just so y'all know, I went ahead and did this in a strongest will survive and strong pollen will rule... Still haven't resowed seed but there was plenty of pollination just from the fans

[bogfrog]

Chilli-mutts sound pretty cool to me. Cant wait to see how variable the offspring is.

[bullit]

i think its the same rule as xing datura coz chillies and datura self fruit<> it was fucken hard to do.. getting the plants to flower @ the same time and soooo on <> my mate [20 years nurseryhand] helped