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Bait and switch

T

ta2edfreak

I lost my other posts but oh well. The last thing I posted on sunday morning was about my odd shaped jalapenos, if you saw it you would understand. The shape (round, 4 1/2" around and 2 inch long) leads me to believe that they were mislabeled or mis packaged at the store. I bought them from the garden center of a hardware store as plants. There were no buds or pods yet, so unless they crossed with the plants I have them with now my only conclusion is that they are Bells that were mislabeled. They look like my other jalapeno plants; same height, same leaf and pod count, the leaves are a bit darker green but that can be accounted by a number of things. I can only wait until they grow and ripen more to find out if I am correct. Does this happen often from nurseries or even buying seeds online?

sean
 
I've purchased a number of plants from stores and found I was lucky if I ended up with the correct variety.

First Season
I knew a plant labelled Hungarian Wax was authentic as it had pods. I knew the first Habanero Red plant I bought was likely to be a red as it had light green pods with the correct shape.

A Pequin plant ended up being a Tepin. A Tepin ended up being a hybrid. This half worked out as at least one of the plants was a Tepin.

A Rainbow Thai plant is probably some type of NuMex ornamental. The Rainbow Thai is almost identical to another ornamental variety here except it grows taller. I was hoping for larger pods. This one is probably a matter of misidentification.

A Jalepeño TAM Mild plant is not mild and hotter than a plant branded as Jalapeño Fire Eater. I have the later noted as Jalapeño Fireless as all but one pod produced any hint of heat. The one exception from the two plants of the latter variety was a scorcher that put off the non-heat seekers that eat them.

A Habanero Yellow plant ended up being a some variant of orange Habanero.

Second season
A Habanero Brown plant ended up being a Red C. Chinense.

A Habanero plant that originated from a different nursery was seemingly authentic. I identified it as a likely Habanero from the leaves prior to purchasing it. The orange Habanero plants I have grown seem to have somewhat distinct leaves.

I'm not keen on buying plants from stores again in Australia.

Edit: Forgot one good outcome.
 
LGHT said:
This is a common problem when buying seeds from an untrusted source. One of the reasons why there is a sticky with a LOT of similar problems.
Click to expand...

I did notice that in one instance the photo on the label of a couple of the plants I bought match the photos on Reimer Seeds. The photo on their web site was a larger version of the photo from Reimer Seeds.

I couldn't find much by the way of a commercial seed supplier that could supply those varieties in bulk. I had a look to see if I could one one to suggest to the nursery.

Learning that a plant has not grown true after 4 months is immensely annoying.
 
They couldn't have crossed with the plants you have growing now. You have to get into the second generation.
 
It's actually the first gen patrick. Hence the f1 and not a 2. :D

What you mean is that you would have to grow the seeds and see. Just grinding those gears bud.
 
One of the reasons to be a bug on chile taxonomy is that it prevents the unethical from fleecing newbies as happens waaaaayyyyyyy too much.

It's important to get the name and species correct so you can grow what you want.
If everyone makes up his own name, nobody knows what he is getting.
 
I bought six orange habs from bunnings last season and they all grew well and true. A 4 pack and a single one were from one nursery, they all grew the same. The other had slightly darker leaves, and was slightly differently shaped but all the pods matured out to be the same in the end. I'm pretty sure I got good value for these ones.

I also got two Jalapeno plants which really disappointed in size. Also an eight pack of red cayennes which barely grew and only set a few pods between them. All from bunnings which sources its plants from many places according to the labels. There might have been some ignorant treatment of them on my part and it was late in the season but they really should have done better than they did.

I am convinced that there is a large sector of the nursery industry that just wants to cynically churn out seedlings for the quick sale, knowing they are not going to grow well or true. If every plant they sold grew incredibly they would lose profits next season when everyone still had the old ones growing. This is why I'd rather grow mine from seeds so I know what they are and I can control all the factors.
 
That's why after 4 years of buying chilli plants myself, I am sick of it and I'm here trying to grow my own from trusted seed suppliers.
 
patrick said:
They couldn't have crossed with the plants you have growing now. You have to get into the second generation.
Click to expand...


Can you explain that part? i thought pollination of existing flowers with other plants, either through nature (wind, insects) or by hand, would cause a cross breed. I'm not doubting you, I just don't know about it.
 
A cross bred plant will grow from the seed if planted later.
Whatever plant it is, it can only grow chillies to it's type; it can't grow any chilli that it's not already programmed to grow. Pollination from other sources has no effect on a plant and the chillies it will produce.
Cross pollination will only affect it's seeds, ie the next generation of plants if someone plants one of it's seeds.
Edit: Therefore if a plant isn't growing true to it's type and it's chillies are wrong, it was grown from a cross bred seed.
 
Ok I get it. I guess i was confused as others have said that they had different peppers grow than expected because of cross pollination, maybe they meant from last year and were growing from seed?
 
If peppers are a side-biz, as many seem to be in big box stores, I'd be skeptical. Seeds from people that specialize in peppers, like those on this site, are a better/surer bet.
 
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