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F1's sold by vendors that don't make sense

wildseed57

wildseed57

Hi, I was browsing some of the vendors which I won't  name, but found one that was selling F1 and F2 hybrids and even made up a name for them, I'll agree that many hybrids will have better growth with added disease resistance and possibly be even hotter, but just to take a pepper like the Bhut Jolokia and cross it with a C. galapagoense to me makes no sense at all, as there has been little study to show that the Bhut cross any better than what it is already by crossing it with a rare wild species like C. galapagoense.
At F1 and F2 you are still guessing if the cross would improvement or not. 
They also had a F1  hybrid called Upica, the cross reminds me of a Chocolate Naga or a Brown 7 Pot. I can only guess what it was crossed with.
Don't get me wrong as I happen to like a lot of the crosses that are going around, but some are just another way to get people to buy them and if you keep the seeds the next generation would not be the same and you would have to keep selecting various qualities that you like and it would still be a gamble that the cross would be an improvement.
I think it would be better to do the crosses and select for the best qualities at F6 to F8 at F6 you would still have to grow it out a couple more times to get what you like about it and perhaps have a good pepper,  F8 would be fairly stable and you would have a good idea what attributes the pepper would have.  This would be a lot fairer than just making up a bunch of crosses and then releasing them to the public also it would cut down a lot of confusion as to what the pepper may be like as you would know what you are getting.
I'm not trying to stomp on someone's dream of making money, but hey it just adds to all the confusion as to what is already out there.
 
I see f1 hybrids as being the way in the future of the chile community. The reason is because the companies can make more money that way. Much like when Ed Currie created the Carolina Reaper and people were getting pissed because they thought that they would be sued if they tried to sell them. There were people saying that they would grow Reapers and then just give their seeds away for free. It's hard on a small business when people try to cut their throats like that. f1's will be a way for the companies to ensure a steady income in the future. I think that most of the stable varieties that are being created will be for a record of some type and that's all.
 
At least they are telling you the truth if they are writing F1 or F2. Nobody would make that up  ;)
 
Whether selling F1 or F2 gen. seeds is ethical is another question. I honestly don`t see anything wrong with it, as long as you are getting the truth. Then, it`s up to you to decide if you want to grow out an F1 or F2 if you have to pay $5 for a few seeds. It`s your choice. Take it or leave it. In this case, I believe you are getting the truth. If you or anyone wants to grow an F1/F2, good luck to you. You may get something really cool and different. You may not. Whatever the case is, you`ll still have fun growing out something unusual.
 
As for hybridizing C.galapagoense, well, I`m not a fan of that. Even if it`s just to see if it`s possible. The problem comes when you give away seeds clearly labelled as a cross, but the 4th or 9th person down the line doesn`t. It then gets labelled as C,galapagoense (weird phenotype), at least potentially, and the genetic pool gets really messed up. Bhut x Galap. sounds kinda crazy, but so does Reaper x Tepin and look at how many people think that is incredibly cool. 
 
Personally i see everyone's point of view here. All of it seems valid, at least under certain circumstances. But on the same note, i think it's a lot of fun seeing how different F1 crosses turn out.
 
And, when you regrow them as F2, F3, are they really the same pepper anymore? And if not, what the heck would you call them?
 
A grain of salt applies here, but i think in the tomato world, they keep reselecting F1 fruit that look and taste like the F1 generation, stabilize it, then hyphenate it as "-open pollinated" (i think i'm right?) If so then maybe the pepper world should get on board with that, call the pepper by it's original F1 name but hyphen it with the word -open pollinated.
 
.The tomato community seems a lot more advanced, or transparent, in this regard imho.
 
Just my 2c,
 
There are a lot of good hybrids out there that were carefully designed to have good production, disease resistance and high nutritional value, these hybrids are produce by professional plant breeders with the intent to not only provide a good product but one that is worth the cost of creating it.
There are others though that don't care whether or not the hybrid has any true value, what good is a pepper if it hasn't any resistance to disease or pest and ends up being a waste of time and money to grow. If you want to make a hybrid you should at least take the time to see what attributes the pepper has along with the pepper that you want to cross with it.
Just crossing one pepper with another and giving it a fancy name doesn't make it a good pepper especially if you intend to sell it.
 
Nigel said:
At least they are telling you the truth if they are writing F1 or F2. Nobody would make that up  ;)
 
Whether selling F1 or F2 gen. seeds is ethical is another question. I honestly don`t see anything wrong with it, as long as you are getting the truth. Then, it`s up to you to decide if you want to grow out an F1 or F2 if you have to pay $5 for a few seeds. It`s your choice. Take it or leave it. In this case, I believe you are getting the truth. If you or anyone wants to grow an F1/F2, good luck to you. You may get something really cool and different. You may not. Whatever the case is, you`ll still have fun growing out something unusual.
 
As for hybridizing C.galapagoense, well, I`m not a fan of that. Even if it`s just to see if it`s possible. The problem comes when you give away seeds clearly labelled as a cross, but the 4th or 9th person down the line doesn`t. It then gets labelled as C,galapagoense (weird phenotype), at least potentially, and the genetic pool gets really messed up. Bhut x Galap. sounds kinda crazy, but so does Reaper x Tepin and look at how many people think that is incredibly cool. 
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Chris (cmpman1974) sent me a Bhut x Galapagoense back in 2012 and I have 4 seedlings going now. It was a really nice pepper!!
 
Hmmm.
I can see the point of it for profit and preserving a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime result.
 
Lets say you are a mad pepper scientist.
You get some awesome plant/pepper in a sub 8th gen, maybe just a single plant.
 
Maybe the only way to preserve it is to clone it, as any further breeding may lose it forever.
 
Without some big $$$ sponsor to trademark or patent it, you will be the only source for a while.
 
It will propagate down the food chain, but more slowly than seeds will, as it takes a bit more effort to clone than to pop a seed in the ground.
 
Of course, the honest person would sell it as "unstable hybrid, unlikely to reproduce from seed".
 
I see every one's point here, my feelings about crossing a pepper, is one of keeping rare wilds out of hybrid mixes as they can dilute
the natural gene pool. while accidental crosses can happen, they should be marked as a cross of what they are and not traded around unless they are asked for, but such crosses should also be kept away fro pure wild strains as they may now be able to cross into them. I for one am growing a C. galapagoense this season, as I have tried and failed 4 times before for some unknown reasons, but this time its a winner and I have 4 nice seedlings I'm hoping that they will be pure wild galapagoense and not a cross, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed, as to me they represent a genetic treasure. I got these from another person for free so i can't complain if they are crossed. Had I paid money for them I would be unhappy if they were a cross,  as vendors that produce much of their own seeds should make sure that the customer gets what he paid for.  If you do get or buy a Hybrid cross that has been crossed with a rare wild species please keep any other wild species away from hybrid crosses and other species that they can cross with so that we don't end up loesing our wild rare species do to gene polution.
 
wildseed57 said:
I see every one's point here, my feelings about crossing a pepper, is one of keeping rare wilds out of hybrid mixes as they can dilute
the natural gene pool. while accidental crosses can happen, they should be marked as a cross of what they are and not traded around unless they are asked for, but such crosses should also be kept away fro pure wild strains as they may now be able to cross into them. 
Click to expand...
 
It's good breeding to cross with wilds. This is very typical of any kind of breeding. The wilds have to survive, so they typically have better disease resistance and other good traits. Crossing with wilds will get us strong plants. I'll be crossing c. galapagoense and other wilds as well as isolating them.
 
I understand where you are coming from on selling unstable seeds because of the high variation in pods phenotypic and genotypic characteristics, and I know exactly where you got these seeds from because I bought some as well as other seeds from there! They were not that expensive and the main reason I bought them is for the unknown. They are crosses that I don't know the mother and father and I have no idea whey they will be like in terms of taste, heat, size, shape, texture. That's exciting to me. They may be some of the best pods I've had or some of the worst ( I'm hoping for best!) 
 
That's why I don't mind him selling them at F1 - F3. He tells you upfront they are not stable, so the pods you get out of it you can choose the pod shape, size, heat level, look, etc you can go on to grow your type of pepper. It's crossing without the process of actually having to cross pollinate yourself. I love it. 
 
Yes I will agree tha using wilds can bring in unquic genes that in the long run could make a wonderful cross, I'm dimanataling a bell pepper that has many good traints and taste quite good and is quite a large bell plant to get the genes I want to all to my own long running project which is in its tenth year and it is still not what I want, So I have been Going back one to two generations to corect what I don't like about it.
 
What bothers me is  that there are more and more F1, F2, and F3's out there that they are blending there way end and look like so many of the Origanals that its messing the pure lines and people are mistaking them for something else.
 I have two maybe three varieties the 7 pot Barrackpore, 7pot infinity,  and maybe one other I can't think of its name just now, I was under the asumption that they were stable lines, but some of the plants show some very odd pods last year that could mean that they are still unstable, I sellected the best pods from the best plants from them but only a small amount of pods looked anything like some that are supposidly pods from pure seeds  even with climit and stress ans inviromental factors thrown in they still look odd.
So I can't or won't trade seeds from them till I'm sure that they are stablie plants. This means that a lot of people that I had marked for seed will not get any from those two varieties.
 
I think it's up to us mostly, we have to know what is right and not right to sell as a cross or pure line pepper. I for one would never give someone seeds knowing they may be crossed, I would just feel bad that they were not getting the pepper they wanted to grow. So I'm with you on that 100%! I have my peppers covered with cloth while flowering for this very reason, and so they don't get burnt. But it helps eliminate crossing so I know they will be the correct peppers in the end. 
 
But on the other hand, if I know it's a cross, and so do they then I'm all for it. I like creating new crosses and then stabilizing them, but not for putting peppers out there for people to buy without letting them know they are not stable, that just makes no sense. But if the individuals ask me for a cross, I will let them know the stability and give them seeds. 
 
Some people like to grow hybrids and pick out the phenotype they like. We as a pepper community do a lot of the deciding of what they "correct" phenotype of a pepper is, or the creator of the pepper does. As with the Bhutlah, for instance, Steven is picking the peppers that he believes have the correct phenotype for his liking, then once he releases it it will be the community standard because he chose it stabilized it and went with it. 
 
And if I made a cool cross that I thought people would like I would stabilize it completely separate from all my other peppers under cloth, but if someone wanted seeds before it was completely stabilized I would let them have some and tell them the phenotype that has the best flavor because one one of two things could happen, they could stabilize it away from other peppers  and grab the phenotype that I showed them, or they could grow it with their other peppers and have crossing again. 
 
It all comes down to what you want to grow, I like crosses and growing them out from what the creator said is the best phono type and correct phenotype. Or with JungleRain in Australia, they sell some really cool hybrids that I'm growing like the Primo x Butch T. I will use the peppers with the phenotype I have seen in photos for future generations. The other phonos I'll can and eat or cross with something else just for fun. Because in the end, a lot of this is just for fun from a hobbyist standpoint! 
 
I make crosses, I grow crosses, I share crosses.  When I share my crosses I am transparent about the plants I use, which generation they are and so on.
 
I grow "pure" lines, keep them pure, keep them going, and share these.
 
I also grow wilds, keep them going, share these.
 
There really isn't a problem, it's your garden you can do what you want, this is a personal preference.  There's a ton of stuff out there I don't want to grow, but I don't want to tell anyone else what to do.  I like knowing where plants come from, I think their histories are interesting, but again this is just me, maybe some people out there don't care...
 
Spicegeist said:
I make crosses, I grow crosses, I share crosses.  When I share my crosses I am transparent about the plants I use, which generation they are and so on.
 
I grow "pure" lines, keep them pure, keep them going, and share these.
 
I also grow wilds, keep them going, share these.
 
There really isn't a problem, it's your garden you can do what you want, this is a personal preference.  There's a ton of stuff out there I don't want to grow, but I don't want to tell anyone else what to do.  I like knowing where plants come from, I think their histories are interesting, but again this is just me, maybe some people out there don't care...
Click to expand...
 
 
That's what I do. I also don't think it's problem that comes from intentionally hybrids. The only problem pure lines have is with accidental crosses that nobody is aware of.
 
Thats part of the problem when there are so many cross that they begin to blend in with pure lines and more types begin to look like each other to a point that know one is sure just what they have.
I'm growing several crosses and I like a lot of them, it the accidents that happen that make it harder to tell just what you are getting and what you send out unknowingly, I got a lot of seeds given in good faith and I understand that accidents can and will happen,  I have no problem with that, I even ask at times for various crosses which I then isolate from my pure lines.
What I have problems with is telling if a certain pepper has crossed or been crossed when the sender doesn't realize that a certain line is no longer stable and it gets handed around and at some point red infinity is actually red Infinity x naga, but because it still looks like  Infinity, the cross is not caught. 
At what point do we have to say that there might not be any pure lines of wild or cultivated varieties when no one can tell just what is out there. You pretty much have to be a geneticist to be sure just what you have anymore when you're trying to make sure the next person you trade with gets what he or she ask for. 
I think its great that there are people that love to make crosses including myself, I feel that there are varieties that may be a even better if they are crossed, so long as everyone knows its a cross and it doesn't get blended in with other stable varieties, by accident. 
 
 
 
wildseed57 said:
Thats part of the problem when there are so many cross that they begin to blend in with pure lines and more types begin to look like each other to a point that know one is sure just what they have.
I'm growing several crosses and I like a lot of them, it the accidents that happen that make it harder to tell just what you are getting and what you send out unknowingly, I got a lot of seeds given in good faith and I understand that accidents can and will happen,  I have no problem with that, I even ask at times for various crosses which I then isolate from my pure lines.
What I have problems with is telling if a certain pepper has crossed or been crossed when the sender doesn't realize that a certain line is no longer stable and it gets handed around and at some point red infinity is actually red Infinity x naga, but because it still looks like  Infinity, the cross is not caught. 
At what point do we have to say that there might not be any pure lines of wild or cultivated varieties when no one can tell just what is out there. You pretty much have to be a geneticist to be sure just what you have anymore when you're trying to make sure the next person you trade with gets what he or she ask for. 
I think its great that there are people that love to make crosses including myself, I feel that there are varieties that may be a even better if they are crossed, so long as everyone knows its a cross and it doesn't get blended in with other stable varieties, by accident. 
 
 
Click to expand...
 
Well, I think there are different growers who make more or less effort to keep things pure.  Some people are more serious that others, maybe you've just been trading with people who tend to play it loosey-goosey?  I personally don't feel that there is a looming catastrophe where we'll wake up one day and all of our pepper varieties will be lost.  If a casual grower doesn't keep things pure (either because he or she doesn't know how or care to bother), it doesn't mean that everyone is doing the same.
 
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