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HeatMiser's Keeping it Simple With Old Seeds 2020 Grow

Well here it is - after a two year hiatus, I decided to get myself a new grow light (HLG 100), grow peppers again and join this community.

I decided to it simple this year and grow fewer varieties from seeds I already have. These were packaged in 2014 or earlier so it will serve as a viability test as well.

After talking with my wife, we decided on the following 4 varieties

1 Super Hot:
Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. Seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute packaged in 2013.

1 Ornamental:
Numex Twilight. Seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute packaged in 2012.

2 Varieties for Cooking:
Jalafuego. Seeds from tomatogrowers.com. Packaged before 2014
Chiltepin. Seeds I collected after a trip to Texas in 2014.

I have the following goals for this season
  1. Get a decent batch of "hot" Jalapenos. You have to be lucky to find a hot Jalapeno at the store. We plan to pickle them to be used in NACHOS
  2. Incorporate Chiltepin peppers in our cooking (salsas, tacos, etc)
  3. Make some powder with the Trinidad Scorpion Peppers. I've made Ghost Pepper Powder before and it's amazing in stuff like Pho.
  4. Experiment with DWC and Kratky for peppers. My experience is with Dutch Buckets.
  5. Experiment with outdoor hydroponics. Success here means I'll be able to plant more peppers in future years
  6. Try crossing peppers. Always been curious, never really tried it. This year, it's happening.
  7. Growing a Trinidad Scorpion in my office at work. Dare my boss to try one…

The plan is as follows:
  • 1 Trinidad Scorpion and 1 Jalafuego in 5 gal DWC indoors.
  • Grow 1 Chiltepin and 1 Numex Twilight indoors in smaller Kratky containers.
  • Grow 1 Trinidad Scorpion in a 5 gal DWC at work

As the weather improves, I'll set up 1 Trinidad Scorpion and 1 Jalafuego in 5 gal Kratky bucket outdoors. I'll also clone as many plants as I can get away with and put them in soil containers outside.

That's it for plans…

Here's the actual progress so far

12/20/2019 -
• Started soaking Chiltepin seeds in a weak solution of chamomille tea
• Planted Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, Jalafuego and Numex Twilight seeds in rockwool cubes. 2 seeds of each per cube. Placed on a heat mat inside an airtight container with some water on the bottom for moisture

12/21/2019
• Planted Chiltepin seeds
• 3 rockwool cubes with seeds soaked in weak chamomille tea solution for about 25 hours
• 3 rockwool cubes with seeds soaked in 9 parts water, 1 part bleach solution for 5 minutes

12/23/2019
• Noticed a hook in one of the Jalafuego cubes

12/26/2019
• Hooks on all 3 Jalafuego cubes
• One Twilight cube has a hook

12/27/2019
• Hooks on all 3 Twilight cubes. One of them is a bit leggy
• Noticed one Chiltepin seed starting to sprout, from the cube that was soaked in bleach
• Transferred Jalafuego and Twilights to the light and gave them some food, General Hydroponics mild vegetative solution

12/28/2019
• One Jalafuego cube has 2 seedlings, new hook came out.

12/29/2019
• One Chiltepin hook coming out of the cube. Moved the cube to the light
• All 6 Jalafuego seeds have sprouted. 3 seedlings are now upright and 3 hooks are coming out. Germination rate is 6/6

12/30/2019
• Hook from Trinidad Moruga Scorpion came out. Moved to light

1/1/2020
• Hook from Chiltepin seed in bleach solution. Moved to light
• Hook from Chiltepin seed in chamomile tea came out. Moved to light

1/2/2020
• Last Twilight sprouted. Germination rate is 6/6
• Two more Trinidad Moruga Hooks

1/3/2020
• Moved two Trinidad Moruga cubes to light

1/5/2020
• Another Trinidad Moruga sprouted. Germination rate is 4/6

1/7/2020
• Roots from Jalafuego, Twilight and Chiltepin started poking through the bottom of the rockwool cubes. Moved the best plants to their own individual kratky container. Using Mild Vegetative solution from Flora 3 Part solution
• One T5 bulb died. Changed the light to the HLG 100.

1/9/2020
• New Trinidad Moruga Sprouted. Germination Rate: 5/6
• Added an air stone to the Jalafuego Kratky container turning it into a DWC.

1/10/2020
  • Moved another Jalafuego to its own Kratky container

Thanks for reading all of this... I'll be posting some pictures soon!
 
Click to expand...
The big TS is dropping a bunch of flowers. They don't have any pollen. This is normal from chinenses to a certain extent, but I'm trying to tweak environmental factors to see if I can get more pods to set (most likely temp swings at night). 
 
While I wait to see results from these changes, I thought it might be worthwhile to see if some of those flowers with no pollen would set fruit if they got some help from one of the twilights that I have flowering like crazy. I haven't read from anybody trying this, but I assume it happens all the time in nature, effectively creating a cross. Is this something people in here have done before? 
 
duck_hunt_nes_01.jpg
 
With Chinense x Annuum you have a reasonable chance of getting pods and if you get pods you have a chance of getting seeds that will germinate.  That specific interspecific cross can produce VLS, though, so if your focus is a viable hybrid then pollinating in the other direction (Chinense father) is recommended.  Here's a study that has a % results table on page 8 showing success in obtaining fruit and viable seeds.  It also discussed VLS.
 
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/C-chinense-C-annuum-hybrids-showing-virus-like-syndrome-VLS-A-at-50-days_fig17_286232220
 
We have some heat coming on soon, locally.  Pods might start setting better on the TS.
 
CaneDog said:
With Chinense x Annuum you have a reasonable chance of getting pods and if you get pods you have a chance of getting seeds that will germinate.  That specific interspecific cross can produce VLS, though, so if your focus is a viable hybrid then pollinating in the other direction (Chinense father) is recommended.  Here's a study that has a % results table on page 8 showing success in obtaining fruit and viable seeds.  It also discussed VLS.
 
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/C-chinense-C-annuum-hybrids-showing-virus-like-syndrome-VLS-A-at-50-days_fig17_286232220
 
We have some heat coming on soon, locally.  Pod set's might be getting better on the TS.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks CD!
 
I'll have to go through that paper in detail, but those plants with VLS look awful, haha. It's good to know that there's a fairly good chance of this happening, so I won't even bother in saving seed if a few of those crosses do stick. Figured it couldn't hurt to try and would be happy if I got something out.
 
Anyway, yes! weather will be improving around here... hopefully that is what's causing the flower drop and I won't have to do more troubleshooting.
Fishing is also open again, can't wait to get back on the water...
 
CaneDog said:
I didn't remember that you fished - or maybe you hadn't mentioned it.  What type/s of fishing do you like? 
 
BTW, the 2 more recent Chiltepins are now blowing past the original one, which never really took off. They're going to be good plants and are already starting to show laterals at just a couple inches.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah, I guess I've never mentioned it - I do and enjoy all kinds of fishing depending on the season. Since lakes have been planted recently, I fish for trout out of my kayak in spring, also kokanee out of a friend's boat. Then I transition to bass in late spring/early summer. Once salmon show up in the rivers, we chase them out of my friend's boat. This usually lasts until mid fall. Then in late fall/winter, I try my luck chasing cutthroat trout on the fly in Puget Sound (never really been successful with them, but I love the isolation and scenery). The PNW is really a great place for this sport.
 
I'm glad the chiltepins are working out for you - hopefully you get good production from them (would love to see some pics when you get the chance). I don't know what happened with mine, but after they lost all their leaves they've been coming back really slowly. I won't give up on them as long as the plants are still alive, but it seems I might have to try them again in my next grow now that I've learned some lessons with Kratky. Are you planning on saving seeds from them?
 
Awesome.  That is a little bit of everything.  I'll be keeping my eyes open for some fishing-themed posts from you soon :)
 
I've had good luck with sea-run cutt's and smaller resident silvers on the fly (usually small synthetic tube-fly streamers) taking the Fauntleroy Ferry across to Vashon Island.  Even just wade-fishing the shore on either side of the terminal has produced well, with more silvers on north side on the terminal where it's a smooth gravel bottom and more cutt's on the south side where it's rockier.  There's other good spots on the island too, but that's an easy one.
 
I'm totally planning to save seeds.  I really like the growth pattern yours showed and mine seem to be doing the same.  I'm behind the timeline and tepins have at times been slower producers for me, but I'll find a way to make it happen even if these guys turn out to be slow in this climate.
 
CaneDog said:
Awesome.  That is a little bit of everything.  I'll be keeping my eyes open for some fishing-themed posts from you soon :)
 
I've had good luck with sea-run cutt's and smaller resident silvers on the fly (usually small synthetic tube-fly streamers) taking the Fauntleroy Ferry across to Vashon Island.  Even just wade-fishing the shore on either side of the terminal has produced well, with more silvers on north side on the terminal where it's a smooth gravel bottom and more cutt's on the south side where it's rockier.  There's other good spots on the island too, but that's an easy one.
 
I'm totally planning to save seeds.  I really like the growth pattern yours showed and mine seem to be doing the same.  I'm behind the timeline and tepins have at times been slower producers for me, but I'll find a way to make it happen even if these guys turn out to be slow in this climate.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the tip on those cutts CD, chasing after them can leave someone questioning their ability to catch fish, haha.
 
Totally agree on tepins being slow producers. All other peppers in my grow were already flowering when I noticed the first bud on one of the tepins - then disaster struck  :violin:
 
Well, it seems like the warmer night temp is helping that TS with pollen production.
 
I was just shaking some flowers against a condiment cup to check if they drop pollen. A couple flowers did, about half a dozen or so fell off. At least that's an improvement from earlier this week when I didn't notice any pollen production, so I think I'm on the right track here. The backup Numex Twilight had two flowers at the right stage for crossing, so I decided to try this cross in the opposite way. Hopefully the pods on both plants set.
 
Some progress pics
 
TS under Sansi
Still dropping flowers. More stable temps should help, but at this size, I'm starting to wonder if the Sansi is providing enough light for the pods to set. Thoughts?
6ksxrKD.jpg

 
3L3hpPZ.jpg

 
Roots!
Lb4tUfJ.jpg

 
And the only pod is starting to look a little more intimidating
yNAwfI1.jpg

 
After almost a month, the chiltepins are starting to come out of whatever funk they were in
WM0ikIv.jpg

 
And the DWC TS I have under T5s is also showing some green too
teYBjHN.jpg
 
CaneDog said:
That's great.  And good luck with the crosses taking!
 
It's starting to look like early plant-out temps.
Click to expand...
 
It's unseasonably warm today!
 
That being said, I am now on the fence about taking the plants outside. I think I've struggled quite a bit with some of them and now that they're showing signs of coming back to life, I'd hate to introduce more variables into the mix that could further hinder my season. The plan was to grow some peppers outside this summer to possibly expand my grow next year.  However, we are expecting our second son later this year and I will be quite busy!!
 
PaulG said:
You are going to have some nice, bushy plants, HM!
 
Interesting pod on the T Scorp.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Paul, that's the plan! Now they need to really crank up that growth to make up for lost time!! It's been a rough month for these plants and I'd love to see them roaring back at this point...
 
I really can't wait for that pod to ripen, since this is the plant that I had at work, it has my boss' name on it!
 
The success of my PNW pepper grows depends on
the Fall weather, HM. The past three years the Months
of June have produced cruddy weather, but the overall
seasons were good due to nice September to October
Fall weather.
 
PaulG said:
The success of my PNW pepper grows depends on
the Fall weather, HM. The past three years the Months
of June have produced cruddy weather, but the overall
seasons were good due to nice September to October
Fall weather.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Paul, I was thinking I'd be done before that, haha!
My outdoor growing experience is limited to small containers and raised beds, without much production to show for it.
 
The first time I tried indoor hydro seriously with dutch buckets, the production I got from those Jalafuegos completely blew my mind, and those grows only lasted about 5-6 months. So I've never grown throughout a full season. If we still have another 4-5 months to go, it might still make sense to experiment at least with one of the TS I have once I get some production out of the other plants I plan to keep indoors, and also after the plant has recovered enough to be able to hang out outdoors. 
 
Thanks for the insight! Much appreciated...
 
The backup Twilight I was going to replace the main one with dropped almost all of its leaves today...
 
mhdylSv.jpg

 
This was just a couple of days after the 2nd backup did the same thing. All the chiltepins and twilights have now suffered from serious leaf drop just when they're about to flower. Anybody seen something like this whether they're growing in soil or hydro? 
 
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