• If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.

Why are supers hard to grow?

Comptine

Comptine

I keep seeing this saying all over the place, but no one seems to talk about why. Are supers harder to germinate, or do they grow slower? Are they picky with the nutrients. Or does the saying refer more to it being harder to get them to reach their full potential heat wise?
 
I'm curious because I'm growing quite a few supers, and this is also my first time growing chilies. 
 
I grew last year a 7 Pot BS red, but can't say it was hard to grow. I have plants of superhots this year, also can't say it was harder to germinate comparing to others, nor that they grow more difficult tha others. So, either I am a lucky guy, or this is just a mith.
Waiting to other opinions.
 
I am growing 7 pots and reapers this year. Can't say I've had any difficulty with either one. The reapers did seem to grow a little bit slowly at first, but they didn't need any special care, they just seemed to take a little longer to really hit their stride.
 
You will find that due to the genetic make up of superhot's that they naturally have a slower Seeding time and ripening time,  bad germination rates caused by longer sow time seedlings is probably due to miss management of soil moistures and temperatures over the longer time it takes to pop.. That being said I have had little to no difference on germination rates between peppers that are 0-500 scovilles vs 2,200,000, so I think it comes down to the grower, not the seeds type.
 
I just put in another 60 odd Superhots.. So far I have had full pops on 3 trays of 12 and I just checked and have 6 in another and 8 in another. and I imagine the other few are not far behind, and I'm talking, Reaper x Butch-T crosses, Caramel Bhuts, Scorpions, Douglahs, Moruga blends etc.. I even had a seed that I chewed on for a bit but decided at the last minute to grow pop (it was missing its head and is just a stem atm, but its a thick solid stem lol ) .. and that was one of the reaper Butch-T cross seeds.
 
You will find that most cooler varieties grow faster and pod quicker, but personally I find the super hots more resilient to problems... (Except Peach Bhuts they suck to grow lol)  
 
Because most of the varieties are relatively young, and they've been bred to produce Scoville units at the expense of all other characteristics.  Over time, any given variety could gain overall health if there was a determined effort to breed positive traits, but I somehow doubt this will happen.  Instead, people will be chasing off to produce the Next Big Thing, regardless of how sickly it may be.  Who cares if germination takes 3 months and only 5% of the plants survive, so long as NBT scores > 3.0M Scovilles and looks and tastes Mega-Bitchin!  
 
I've always operated under the assumption that people in general think "peppers are hard to grow" because of two reasons
 
1) Some take longer to germinate, people will pitch seeds when they haven't germinated in 10 days or so
 
2) Overwatering.
 
I've got 400 plants going strong. Being my first year growing chiles by seed and not buying plants I over sowed seeds by quite a bit due to not knowing what to expect. So as a rough estimate I planted 1600 seeds (most cells I put 4 seeds in each) and 98% were supers. Let's just say I had a TON of culling to do. Almost every seed I planted germ'd and none of them took close to the 30 days I'd heard it can take. Now the beginning trays germinated a little slower because I wasn't using heat. As soon as I put those trays on the radiator (started in Feb so heater was going all the time) the seeds started popping in a few days. I bought a 48" heat mat after that and have used it for the rest. I also soaked all of my seeds in chamomile for 24 hrs so that might have helped with my germ time.
 
Other that it's been pretty easy. It's already been said but a bug thing is don't over water. I did at the beginning and got some edema and yellowing but now I've got it figured out and things are rocking along. Just give em plenty of light and don't baby them. Just let them do their thing and they will
 
I'm glad you say these things, so far my supers have grown just like all the others, if not better. I've actually had the opposite problem when it comes to germination, my mildest ones refuse to germinate, I have three varieties where I've had a 0% rate. 
 
I guess we could settle on this just being a myth. Unless you're chasing heat, I understand that the growing conditions affect the results. I'm not too bothered about that. 
 
Last year i grew bhuts, reapers and thai sun chili, I had 4 plants of each. My bhuts and reapers produced lots of flowers but they flowers didn't release any pollen.
 
Thai sun gave me lots of fruits.
 
All the plants where placed in the same grow box.
 
There is one problem i have, outdoors, in my climate... the night-time temperatures invariably drop below 65°F (about 17°C). For many strains of Capsicum chinense (all the superhots belong to this species), this prevents pollination and fruit-set. I believe we had one week last summer, about the end of July, in which fruit were set. I think this only happened after about 4 days of night temperature minimums of about 70°F (21°C). I think this implies that my ghost pepper plants needed a minimum of 2-3 consecutive warm nights to set fruit; the follwing month (August) had several single warm nights with no result.

newril said:
Last year i grew bhuts, reapers and thai sun chili, I had 4 plants of each. My bhuts and reapers produced lots of flowers but they flowers didn't release any pollen.
 
Thai sun gave me lots of fruits.
 
All the plants where placed in the same grow box.
Click to expand...
I'm unfamiliar with Thai Sun chilis -- are they a Capsicum annuum? That species will readily pollinate, and easily sets fruit in my climate.
 
I think because of the higher temperatures needed to germinate the seeds it gives new people the idea that they take long to germinate. On a heating pad around 80 degrees most of mine germinated in a few days
 
There are so many myths out there... When I first discovered super-hots, I read they had to be grown in pots or they would die if grown in the ground... so I planted all of my super hots in pots my first season.  hahaha
 
The case is quite the opposite, I find the plants are much more happy in the ground.
 
mikeg said:
There is one problem i have, outdoors, in my climate... the night-time temperatures invariably drop below 65°F (about 17°C). For many strains of Capsicum chinense (all the superhots belong to this species), this prevents pollination and fruit-set. I believe we had one week last summer, about the end of July, in which fruit were set. I think this only happened after about 4 days of night temperature minimums of about 70°F (21°C). I think this implies that my ghost pepper plants needed a minimum of 2-3 consecutive warm nights to set fruit; the follwing month (August) had several single warm nights with no result.


I'm unfamiliar with Thai Sun chilis -- are they a Capsicum annuum? That species will readily pollinate, and easily sets fruit in my climate.
Click to expand...
 
Yep, they are [SIZE=11.9999990463257px]Capsicum annuum[/SIZE]
 
I have had most species of peppers flower, set fruit and grow them to maturity in temps below 50f.  I think there are many other environmental factors that are far more important than night time temps when it comes to fruiting.  Most of the time our plants suffer from Attentionitis.  In other words we pay them too much attention and actually harm their natural need to set fruit.
 
I have never had a problem with supers being lazy growers or germinators. With one exception... ghost peppers!
 
Reapers, grow like a champ
TM Scorpions, grew bigger and better
Thai peppers, semi vigorous but not slow
ghost peppers, never got even one to germinate in my lifetime (or, since something hotter than habs came to be famous)
 
Got a trick to getting those Bhuts to pop up. Jack the temp a little bit in the germination tank up and down. The varried temp sometimes gets them to pop up
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top