breeding Galapagos Red Habanero x CGN 21500 Cross

MiChris

MiChris

     Last year I decided I wanted to try to learn to cross two pepper varieties. I chose two of my favorites, the Galapagos Red Habanero and the CGN 21500 pepper. The Galapagos Red was the mother parent and the CGN 21500 the father. I also chose the CGN 21500 because of its purplish color, hoping to get some of this color in the crossed plants to help ID the fact that I crossed it properly. Some of the first attempts did not produce pods but I was finally successful and got two smaller crossed pods growing on my Galapagos Red Plant. I was able to let them ripen in the house after the first frost of the season and got a total of 18 seeds out of them. I planted these seeds Jan. 1 and was able to get 17 of the 18 seeds to germinate and lucky me, the plants are showing some of the darker color from the CGN 21500 father. One of the plants I pictured below. I will continue to update this post as time allows. If anyone has experience with the next stages of this process I would love the input.
 
 

 
 
Genetikx said:
Please keep us updated. I'd like to see how this plays out every step of the way.
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Will do. As this is my first attempt at a cross I am hopeful for some guidance, particularly once it come time for next stage with seeds.
 
A couple of questions...

Do all the seedlings show the same amount of purple/bronze leaf coloration as every other seedling? Are some pure green with no color?

Are these hybrid seedlings as pigmented as the CGN 21500, or is their foliage less pigmented than that parent?

I read a bit about pepper genetics a few weeks ago, but i don't recall if any gene for foliage color is a dominant, recessive, or incompletely dominant trait. There are a few traits that need more than 1 gene to be expressed -- typically, the white, yellow, orange, red, chocolate, green and mustard colors of ripe peppers are determined by the interaction of 4 different genes.

The short answer is that you should get red fruit from all of your F1 generation (the young plants in the photo provided), with approximately 1/4 of the F2 generation (their descendants) having fruit that ripen to an orange color.
How much of the juvenile fruit's purple/black pigmentation will persist is unknown to me. It's determined by a different set of genes than the adult fruit color.

I hope this helps. I've only read a small amount of material on this topic. I am very curious, and want to follow this thread. Pictures of flower and fruit color would be fascinating.
 
mikeg said:
A couple of questions...

Do all the seedlings show the same amount of purple/bronze leaf coloration as every other seedling? Are some pure green with no color?

Are these hybrid seedlings as pigmented as the CGN 21500, or is their foliage less pigmented than that parent?

I read a bit about pepper genetics a few weeks ago, but i don't recall if any gene for foliage color is a dominant, recessive, or incompletely dominant trait. There are a few traits that need more than 1 gene to be expressed -- typically, the white, yellow, orange, red, chocolate, green and mustard colors of ripe peppers are determined by the interaction of 4 different genes.

The short answer is that you should get red fruit from all of your F1 generation (the young plants in the photo provided), with approximately 1/4 of the F2 generation (their descendants) having fruit that ripen to an orange color.
How much of the juvenile fruit's purple/black pigmentation will persist is unknown to me. It's determined by a different set of genes than the adult fruit color.

I hope this helps. I've only read a small amount of material on this topic. I am very curious, and want to follow this thread. Pictures of flower and fruit color would be fascinating.
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Thanks Mikeg for your info and interest in this post. I've also read a bit on pepper genetics so I'm not going in blind but I also put great value into you guys who've have more knowledge and experience than me.

Yes, all 17 plants have this coloration, one or two seem deeper and one or two seem lighter but they are all fairly consistent. There are no green plants. The color doesn't show true in the pictures yet, I hope to get some pictures in natural sunlight this weekend and I will post them. I will try to post pics of all plants tonight as well.

It is hard at this point for me to compare these plants to the CGN 21500s I grew last year. If I remember right my CGNs from last year didn't really show their full true purple color until I put them out in natural sunlight. I am expecting these cross plants to do the same although it is just a guess. I am fairly surprised to see any color to the plants myself as I didn't expect to see any until F2. I did plant both CGNs and regular Galapagos reds this year. The CGNs are just starting to come up so I will have a better comparison soon. The Galapagos reds are all standard green as expected.

A couple other early observations for this F1 cross. The seeds mostly all germinated faster than any other pepper variety I planted at the same time this year (9-10 days). They also seem to be growing much faster than my other pepper plants, even taking into account the faster germination rate. Also I noticed a few didn't care much for transplanting. 3 of the plants wilted down almost immediately when I potted them into the solo cups. The recovered about an hour later. I've never experienced this with any of my other plants from previous years.
 
Thanks for the informative posts. If you sowed seed for hybrids that was fresher than seed for the other plants, this may account for the shorter germination time. You mentioned special care that was taken to get this seed, so perhaps you produced exceptional seeds

I can't guess why some seedlings might suffer unusually from transplant shock, but i wonder about the faster growth rate.

Could it be that the hybrids' purple pigment (at a guess, it would probably be an athocyanin) functions like chlorophyl, but using/absorbing a frequency of light that in your current light source, is a large part of the emission?
To rephrase... is it possible that your lightsource is of a particularly good spectrum in its output for plants using "purple" rather than "green" photosynthesis?

Ahem, perhaps i lack the right terminology, but you will have a chance to compare purebred CGN with the hybrids and the habs... for comparison of purple coloration and also comparative growth rates.
I have no idea what your light source is. However, if it is better for purple-leaved plants in general, this would be quite remarkable!

Personally i am inexperienced with peppers, but i like to garden. I've read a bit. Not enough. My attempt to guess at why your hybrids grow faster is pure speculation. Thanks again for the info.
 
mikeg said:
Thanks for the informative posts. If you sowed seed for hybrids that was fresher than seed for the other plants, this may account for the shorter germination time. You mentioned special care that was taken to get this seed, so perhaps you produced exceptional seeds

I can't guess why some seedlings might suffer unusually from transplant shock, but i wonder about the faster growth rate.

Could it be that the hybrids' purple pigment (at a guess, it would probably be an athocyanin) functions like chlorophyl, but using/absorbing a frequency of light that in your current light source, is a large part of the emission?
To rephrase... is it possible that your lightsource is of a particularly good spectrum in its output for plants using "purple" rather than "green" photosynthesis?

Ahem, perhaps i lack the right terminology, but you will have a chance to compare purebred CGN with the hybrids and the habs... for comparison of purple coloration and also comparative growth rates.
I have no idea what your light source is. However, if it is better for purple-leaved plants in general, this would be quite remarkable!

Personally i am inexperienced with peppers, but i like to garden. I've read a bit. Not enough. My attempt to guess at why your hybrids grow faster is pure speculation. Thanks again for the info.
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 All the seeds were harvested and dried in the same manner within a week or two of each other. I did think of that as well.
 
Interesting thoughts on the color and the lights. I grow them under 8 T-8s with 6500K bulbs in a grow tent that stays around 80 deg. F.
 
 
 
 

Family portrait, all 17 plants to show color variations. Very early on in the process and I am sure this will all change as they grow.
 
 
Update, added two pictures from 2/1/15. First is comparison picture of colors - darkest color and lightest color, the color still isn't showing up in the pictures 100% true and is darker than it shows in the pic. The second is a comparison picture for size and color between a crossed Galapagos Red habanero x CGN 21500 and the largest Galapagos red habanero that was planted at the same time.
 

Color - darkest and lightest
 
 
 

Galapagos Red Habanero X CGN21500 cross (left) and true Galapagos Red Habanero (right)
 
SL3 said:
You sure picked two good ones to cross. Absolutely two of my favorites. You may actually end up with a beautiful plant that tastes great!
 
Can't wait to see the final product.
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I can only hope...
 
Great thread!  I'm on board to follow along.
 
This week's update. In my opinion the variety is a very fast grower. I have included pictures of all 17 plants along with the comparison between the same cross and the same Galapagos Red Habanero planted at the same time. One point of interest is that one plant (#4) is much smaller and darker than the rest. Some of the color is fading on some of the plants but I think this is mostly due to the new growth that is coming in hasn't darkened fully yet.
 

All 17 on 2/7/15
 
 

Galapagos Red x CGN 21500 Cross and Galapagos red habanero that were planted on the same day
 
MiChris said:
How crazy is it that that gives me a sense of pride? Funny thing this pepper growing.
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Not crazy at all. You should be proud, those are some nice looking plants. I'd be surprised if those don't end up on a lot of people's wish lists and grown out into some amazing varieties.
 
chocolatescotchbonnet said:
got any of those CGN21500 seeds left over? 8)
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PM me. I have some I can send you.
 
Update this week. These plants continue to outpace the rest of my peppers. Most of the early dark coloration has gone but my thoughts are that once they hit real sunlight it will come back. Also added a close-up pic of one plants from the side.
 
 

Galapagos red habanero x CGN 21500 cross (2-14-15)
 

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