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The ultimate useable ornamental

Hi all,
 
I'm not sure if this should go in hot pepper talk or growing.. but.. I'm thinking about some crossings that I would like to experiment with. Now I only want to try some basic crossings (i.e.  round red pepper x longish black or yellow pepper etc) to see if I can make it work with a clear visible result. I have no ambition to create a perfect pepper this season, but it's just a long term skill that I would like to develop.
 
However, as I notice that there are huge hypes around regarding great looking peppers (Who's not talking about Enrico's Pink Tiger, right?) I figure there is quite a market for a nice looking ornamental pepper that might see use in the kitchen.  I don't want to gain a cent from the hype, but I thought the regular pepper folk might find it interesting as well. So I thought about a nice topic to do a collective brain storm on peppers that should come out as nice varieties.
 
The idea is to come up with a realistic crossing that might even work. On fatalii's site is a nice table what would work with what. Needless to say, in theory everything works.. Getting the result you want is a completely other thing. You can cross a super hot yellow scorpion type pepper with a black habanero type and get out a longish, non scorpion mild yellow type instead of the black haba scorpion you want.. or something like that. Phenotypes don't tend to listen to what the originator wants. And even if you get them to do what you want, you need to stabilize the strain.. which can take 5 seasons.
 
My idea;
 
Fish pepper (annuum) x Aji Amarillo (baccatum) = Striped, longish nice tasting orange pod
Trinidad Moruga Scorpion (chinense) x Fish pepper (annuum) = Super hot striped pod, hopefully with a tail.
Cheiro or Fidalga roxa (chinense) x Trinidad Moruga Scorpion (chinense) = Pink scorpion
 
So just shout out some idea's, with the wished result.. Hopefully this thread gets some people interested and sparks soms great new varieties.
 
Interesting, and with all the genetic diversity within the Capsicum species that are likely to hybridize -- annuum, chinense, frutescens -- you have set out a fertile garden for our imaginations to flourish in!
The chance of an occasional baccatum hybrid (ie.: lemon drop X tepin), and the visual appeal of their green/gold/bronze-marked flowers is also worth contemplating.

Here's a couple of notions:
- Pimenta de Neyde X Fish. At a guess, the inky anthocyanin pigments would bleed into the white streaks, so that a fruit would appear to be seething with actinic-purple chain-lightning.
- Pink Tiger X Fish. White and black/purple streaks all over the fruit. Where they intersect, color bleed should make a phosphorescent hue.
- Breed a purple-leaved plant with a white-fruited plant -- whether the fruit are actually pale purple or pure white, they would contrast nicely. Note that purple leaves AND pale fruit won't appear together in any specimens till the F2 generation (at the earliest), since three separate recessive genes must be expressed to produce white fruit.
- Peruvian White or White Bullet Habanero hybridised with a superhot. At least one backcross may be needed to produce fruit with superhot SHUs. The compact growth of the white hab would make it easier to overwinter. The high yield is always nice. Perhaps the most convenient is that the high-heat fruits would be closer to "single-serving" sized portions.
Note: the dwarfed growth habit of the white habs is recessive, so all the F1 plants are likely to be the size of superhots. In subsequent generations, you may be able to cull many unwanted plants at an early stage of development, as soon as they fail to manifest a compact foliage growth pattern.
- MoA Scotch Bonnet (or Bahamian Goat) X Wild Brazil. If the ornate shape of the MoA could be displayed ABOVE the foliage, as most 'wilds' grow, their appearance on the plant would be akin to flowers. The flavor combination would probably be quite nice, from all accounts.

Thank you for this thread. This could be fun!!
 
I have been hunting for something I got a whisper of, I can't remember when I heard about it or where, but it intrigued me.  It was called 7 Pot Blue and is supposed to be Primo X Filius Blue.  If it's just a myth then that's one thing, but it's also a reasonable idea for a cross.  I think crossing Filius Blue with just about anything could be interesting, it's how we got the Yaki Blue Fawn.
 
I'm also growing Purple Flash for the first time this season, I think that would be another beautiful ornamental to cross with something.
 
Yes I think the pink, multicolor, blueish and black inky peppers are great gene pools to draw from..
 
Fish Pepper, Filius blue, Fidalga Roxa, Cheiro Roxa, Pimenta de Neyde, Goats Weed (due to the hairy plant), Bird's Eye Baby (Tastewise not that good), Sangria (crappy taste) etc.
 
I don't dislike normal ornamentals, don't get me wrong.. I really LOVE their appearance, unfortunately kinds like the Poinsettia, Medusa, Sangria etc usually taste very crappy. It would be great if "we" pepper folk can creat some beautiful but useable varieties. Even if it's just accidental crossings.
 
I like where this is going. I had several pants last year that I kept mostly for aesthetics as they were truly beautiful, but were not very tasty like Scarlet Lantern and Eliser (Bhut x PDN). I really wanted the Eliser to taste good as those plants and pods where really cool looking. 
 
On the other hand I did have a beautiful Hot Ecuador x Fish Pepper from Aji Joe that tasted just like Hot Ecuador and had striking purple, white and green variegated leaves. I also found both Jalapeno Multi Color and Black Coban to very eatable.
 
 
Yes combining beauty and taste would be great path for you hybridizers to take, rather than always working on just the next super-hot.  
 
Pfeffer said:
Yes I think the pink, multicolor, blueish and black inky peppers are great gene pools to draw from..
 
Fish Pepper, Filius blue, Fidalga Roxa, Cheiro Roxa, Pimenta de Neyde, Goats Weed (due to the hairy plant), Bird's Eye Baby (Tastewise not that good), Sangria (crappy taste) etc.
 
I don't dislike normal ornamentals, don't get me wrong.. I really LOVE their appearance, unfortunately kinds like the Poinsettia, Medusa, Sangria etc usually taste very crappy. It would be great if "we" pepper folk can creat some beautiful but useable varieties. Even if it's just accidental crossings.
The poinsettia I have (takanotsume) don't taste crappy at all!  They were sourced from a local organics commune though and supposedly came straight from Japan.
 
Hmm I have the poinsettia and the takanotsume, but they are completely different in growth paterns. It has the same pod clusters, the Taka is far less bushy. Maybe the poinsetta is derived from the takanotsume?
 
They are supposed to be the same strain, just renamed by Westerners.  I suppose the characteristics could change after X number of years away from Japan though. These that I have are plenty bushy though.  Would probably be really cool to get a superhot cross with them and get big clusters of upright super pods. :)
 
I'm working on this too. Check out my glog for more info. Here is my Chinese 5 colour x pimenta de Neyde F1 hybrid. It retains all the pod colours of the C5C, with a darker leaf colour (not as dark as PDN) but has a growth habit more like a PDN (i.e. huge). Annuum taste to pods. No bitterness but no chinense flavour, either!
 
Whole plant (5 feet tall in tiny pot):

 
Pod colour starts dark purple...

 
...then lightens to white(ish)...

 
...then to yellow (this one is a little past the yellow phase)...

 
...then to orange...

 
...and finally to red.

 
F2 should be interesting (if it is fertile).
 
I like the muiti-color approach. Perhaps a Bolivian Rainbow(5 pod colors) x Fildago Roxa (interesting pod shape and purple leaves). 
 
people with heated greenhouse / grow room can grow 2-3 seasons in one year so they are best equipped to create and stabilize crosses.
 
i would enjoy some weird crosses like aji pineapple x poblano, rooster spur x brown superhot, br starfish x brainstrain
 
Ok, so I am toying around with crossing chinense(M) to annuums(F) with a general idea of what to achieve but mostly to learn how traits are inherited and which are dominant and recessive. One of the potential outcomes which I think would be cool is the cross of a superhot chinense (I am using dorset naga because the peppers are small, in case that is a factor) with the nosegay pepper.
 
il_570xN.261175897.jpg

 
Now this is interesting for two reasons. Firstly at ~12cm high the nosegay is one of the smallest pepper plants with tiny peppers at less than 2cm. The peppers are apparently quite mild but with a cross they will hopefully gain in heat. Now I love these small types because I grow them all over the house and just keep popping peppers in my mouth and the idea of having a hot one sparks my interest. The other reason it would be interesting is because it's a cluster type which is not so interesting until you cross on the double flowering gene. I can only imagine the pepper explosion.
So I guess the aim would be a hot dwarf with an abundance of hot peppers.
 
Similarly I am going to attempt the cross with the Riot which is not as short and the Aurora which is not a cluster but is purple, just to see. I am also going to cross with the Limon, instead of the superhot, to see if DTM can be transerred betwen species.
 
I suppose to be "usable" though you would be aiming for larger peppers for cooking?
 
I grew nosegays last year but they ended up being crossed with something, the flavor of the cross was actually pretty good but the F1 looked like a standard annuum cross, almost like a dwarf superchile.  I'm growing 3 plants of the F2 this year to see if I can get the genes to revert back to the small round pods in any of them while retaining the flavor.  I think crossing a super with them is a great idea.
 
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