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seeds desperately seeking bulbous facing heaven seeds that germ!

SichuaneseFoodFan

SichuaneseFoodFan

Hi guys,

For months I've been trying to grow some facing heaven chilis. I am already growing a couple varieties of the long, thin, spicier kind, but I've had just awful luck getting viable bulbous ones. I've spent a ton of money buying seeds from Europe, but have gotten zero percent germination of this variety from four different vendors now. It's not my technique - I get excellent results from other seeds. The variety I'm looking for is the kind PeriPeri is growing right now in this thread: http://thehotpepper....st__260. Would anyone be willing to help me out and either send me some seeds or point me to a reliable vendor?

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interesting that its called "Facing Heaven" and i believe that's a Chinese species in Spanish the word is "Mirasol" "which is facing the sun" and denotes the fruit is upward turning, there are many species similar to the one your looking for, sorry to say i dont have the specific one you want
the closet i have is "ORDONO" and its a real beauty and no problems with germination, however the fruit is smaller and its super prolific, plant stays small and compact
i also have "GUARANI" which look identical to the one you want except its a BACCATUM and not ANNUM also no germination issues with this one either, super prolific and plant is large
thank your friend Joe
 
Thanks AjiJoe. The peppers I'm looking for a little larger, and the variety originated in Sichuan, China, and were bred for their citrus aroma. Here're more photos:
255f565b-abdd-49b1-81e9-5e20c2f513d4.jpg

szechuan041-1.jpg
 
so, are the pods actually citrus flavoured as well or do they just taste like a cayenne?

after reading your want, off to google i went and it appears a lot of pictures have things like cowhorn or similar with facing heaven name associated. the pictures you supplied seem to be consistent with the true pods.

i will keep my eyes open in our china town to see if i can find them now that i know what they look like and won't be scammed into buy a form of cayenne. of course the pods would be the dried packaged ones.
 
The flavor is different than cayenne. To me, cayenne is smokier and reminds me a bit of black peppercorn. The facing heaven variety I'm looking for is actually a bit less spicy than Cayenne, and yes, the pods have a citrus like aroma and freshness. To be honest though, one of their main attractions to me is their color, which is more vibrant than other frutecens varieties, and when dried maintains the ability to turn chili oil bright red without the aid of dyes like gromwell.
 
Thanks PjPEPPERS. Unfortunately, that was one of the vendors that I got zero percent germination from, including that specific variety. I'm still looking, if anyone has any seeds or advice, I'd really appreciate it.
 
You could pm periperi and ask him to send you seeds from one of his pods. You'd know they were fresh and hopefully viable.
 
I tried germinating them using my heating mat method -- I've germinated a lot of chili peppers before, and I fold a moist paper towel around the seeds and put them in a plastic bag, then I seal the bag and put it on a heating pad on the low setting (thermometer reads 83 degrees).

I also tried to directly sow the remaining seeds into some into Promix medium, which I've kept moist and reasonably warm inside.

An update: on my fourth try with UK vendors, I got decent germination success with seeds from The Chilli Pepper Company (chileseeds.co.uk). Unfortunately, the seeds did not grow true. They initially had great service, but when I sent them photos of how the plants I grew differed from their descriptions, they stopped all contact with me and did not reply.

Luckily, PeriPeri sent me seeds which germed. Thank you thank you thank you!
 
I purchased some Ulupica seeds from a person in Bolivia, and had no success in getting them to sprout. I emailed someone I know for advice, and he told me that he could only get them to sprout by first soaking the seeds in a 2% Potassium Nitrate solution, and then soaking them in a 650ppm GA-3 solution. Not knowing what GA-3 was, I did a little research and then ordered some to try sprouting the remaining Ulupica seeds. Just yesterday I finished a soak using the same solutions with 50 Chiltepin seeds I collected, with the hope that I can improve my germination rate from 50% to something hopefully closer to 90%. I'm sure I'll share my results if they turn out good with everyone here on a new post.

Here is the info I found: http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/GibberellicAcid.htm#GA-3 Information Sheet

Also, I have had excellent germination rates with all of the seeds I bought from La Palma Seeds (semillas.de), and I've bought somewhere around 40 different varieties from there.
 
I've got buds already on the seedlings I grew from the seeds I got from PeriPeri. I'm pinching them off though because the plants are too small and I haven't even transplanted them yet. They will go outside in about 2 weeks! Pics to come.
 
I don't have pics of my plants but have pods exactly like that from last year. They were "labeled" as super chilli. They stayed about a foot tall and were crazy little bushes. The pods did what you said and stood straight up and were absolutely delicious let alone hot. Not super hot but flavorful as hell. The end of the growing season was the best tho. I had pods the size of my thumb! Any way i have a bunch of air dried pods and I'll send you some if you want the seed. Just pm me your addy man.
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Burning Colon said:
so, are the pods actually citrus flavoured as well or do they just taste like a cayenne?

after reading your want, off to google i went and it appears a lot of pictures have things like cowhorn or similar with facing heaven name associated. the pictures you supplied seem to be consistent with the true pods.

i will keep my eyes open in our china town to see if i can find them now that i know what they look like and won't be scammed into buy a form of cayenne. of course the pods would be the dried packaged ones.
Click to expand...

Mine didn't taste like either. More cayenne tho i guess
 
Thanks! Chaotianjiao - I've tried to germinate seeds from fishwell pods in the past without any luck, but it's a coincidence that I found some fresher pods from another company since my last post at a much larger Chinese supermarket in Maryland, and this time they germinated.

But, I haven't managed to get any with quite the same shape as yours, smileyguy's, so I sent you a PM!
 
NateFrentz said:
I've got buds already on the seedlings I grew from the seeds I got from PeriPeri. I'm pinching them off though because the plants are too small and I haven't even transplanted them yet. They will go outside in about 2 weeks! Pics to come.
Click to expand...
Hey Nate, glad to hear your plants already got buds! Man that is fast... would love to see some pics if you can post? Well done and good luck!
 
The last two pictures are the plants from the seeds you sent. It is now my only plant with large bulbous peppers, so I really owe you a debt of gratitude.
The plant looks pretty much the same now - unfortunately my stoop doesn't really get enough light to get really productive plants, but I'm happy with the 10-15 pods on it now and I'm sure I'll get some more eventually. Nothing has ripened yet, but when they do I promise another update.
 
Im glad they turned out alright for you. They do like lots of sun and take some time to change colour. But when they do, that colour just smacks you in the eyeballs! It was without the doubt the most irridescent red I had in my garden last season!
 
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