Different pod genetics

YAMracer754 · Jul 10, 2018

AndyW said:
Using Elmer's glue to glue a flower shut right before it pops. It prevents cross pollination

Is this something you do on a plant you already have crossed and don't want to have it get contaminated with other pollen? I'm trying to get the information I need to do some crosses while the time is right where I'm growing here in TN.

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Ghaleon · Jul 10, 2018

AJ Drew said:
Reading so much different information, I decided to look at peppers the same as people. None of what I am about to say is concrete cause so many sources contradict each other. Here goes.

If a plant is cross pollinated, the children (seeds) will be a combination of mama and papa dna just like people. However, the pod of that plant will be pure mama dna like a woman's afterbirth. However, there is some scientific studies which have found papa dna in the placenta. So it is possible that the folk stories about changing heat via cross pollination might (might I say, might) change the heat because a lot of that is in the placenta. However, most folk believe it will not change the heat or flavor and the studies I have read were on animals, not plants.

Cross pollination should not change the shape, color, or size of a pod. That is all mama dna. If a black man gets a white woman pregnant, the baby (seeds) might be black but the mama wont turn black. This one I am absolutely sure of. The placenta might change, but not the outside of the egg / pepper itself.

A self pollinated flower will not contain the same DNA as the mother. It contains a recombined DNA of the mother. If grown out / stabalized her dna is such a small variety that her pods will be about the same in appearance, but it is never exact dna. Again, just like with children, they dont all turn out exactly the same even with the same mother and father.

But please do not think I am an authority on this stuff. I am only scratching the surface of cross breeding. So many folk wiht so much more knowledge.

This is a good way to deter people who aren't serious about their crosses. People get excited about crossing two peppers and have an appearance and taste in their minds that they're expecting. They haven't stopped to realize that's like knocking your wife up and expecting your child to look exactly like you imagined.

DontPanic · Jul 10, 2018

YAMracer754 said:
Is this something you do on a plant you already have crossed and don't want to have it get contaminated with other pollen? I'm trying to get the information I need to do some crosses while the time is right where I'm growing here in TN.

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Correct, this is something you do to keep the plant from cross-pollinating any further.

You might do this on a cross that you are trying to stabilize. You might even do this on already stabilized varieties if you save seed from year to year, and don't want to be surprised the following year when you find out your previous year's seeds accidentally crossed with some other pepper in your garden.

There's other ways to accomplish this such as wrapping a branch or the entire plant in mesh netting to keep the pollinating bugs out.

I'm still trying to sort out the advantages and disadvantages of each method myself.

YAMracer754 · Jul 10, 2018

Thanks man, it's just so much to take in after taking in all I have already this year! From zero to 100 it seems already and all my time is so consumed just going each step of the way it seems even keeping everything running in tip top (especially with all the plants I got and I'm sure you and like many others on here-we have A LOT!). In the ground, in containers, here, there, everywhere - my joint looks like a plant sanctuary!

But I really do want to make my own crosses... Ugh! If only there was more time or year round growing season, right!?
So much work, sometimes so nice to look back at all the good things ya got going on, other times it's so incredibly stressful!

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sinensis · Jul 10, 2018

DontPanic said:
There's other ways to accomplish this such as wrapping a branch or the entire plant in mesh netting to keep the pollinating bugs out.

I'm still trying to sort out the advantages and disadvantages of each method myself.

of course that method isn't foolproof. it doesn't exclude pollen drift. you can get cross-pollination with just wind and nearby plants.

happytinker · Jul 10, 2018

Peter_L said:
From an epigenetics stand point, runty pod seeds might not be quite as good as the average. Essentially, if there was some stressing condition that is affecting pod development, specific gene expression might be changed even if the genes are the same. The extent that this will produce lasting effects generationally is still researched and up for debate (at least in humans... not sure if peppers are that hot of a topic in the epigenetics research circles ).

Last year I had a tomato seedling survive through extreme stress, and I somewhat suspect that it altered the plant's genetics. I've had 2 tomato varieties volunteering in my yard for years now, a medium yellow, and a medium red, I can always tell the seedlings apart because the red has potato-style leaves.

Last year I discovered a (yellow) tomato seedling starting in a pepper pot and pulled it, decided to transplant it to a nearby pot of crusty top soil on a hot day. A few days later it was a brown stick in the dirt. Then maybe a week or 2 later I was walking through my garden and it was like seeing a ghost.. there was a 6 inch tall tomato plant right where the dead one was before. This plant produced incredibly juicy, sweet, yellow cherry tomatoes. I've never grown cherry tomatoes before so it can't be a cross.

Also, all my potting soils come from my own compost bins, and I hadn't purchased any yellow cherry tomatoes from the supermarket... so really I have no clue where this new tomato came from. I grew the seeds from them this year and all 3 plants produce the same juicy cherry tomatoes, so it looks quite stable.

Either i'm crazy or this zombie tomato transformed itself into something new.

skullbiker · Jul 10, 2018

happytinker said:
Last year I had a tomato seedling survive through extreme stress, and I somewhat suspect that it altered the plant's genetics. I've had 2 tomato varieties volunteering in my yard for years now, a medium yellow, and a medium red, I can always tell the seedlings apart because the red has potato-style leaves.

Last year I discovered a (yellow) tomato seedling starting in a pepper pot and pulled it, decided to transplant it to a nearby pot of crusty top soil on a hot day. A few days later it was a brown stick in the dirt. Then maybe a week or 2 later I was walking through my garden and it was like seeing a ghost.. there was a 6 inch tall tomato plant right where the dead one was before. This plant produced incredibly juicy, sweet, yellow cherry tomatoes. I've never grown cherry tomatoes before so it can't be a cross.

Also, all my potting soils come from my own compost bins, and I hadn't purchased any yellow cherry tomatoes from the supermarket... so really I have no clue where this new tomato came from. I grew the seeds from them this year and all 3 plants produce the same juicy cherry tomatoes, so it looks quite stable.

Either i'm crazy or this zombie tomato transformed itself into something new.

Welcome to receiving bird shit loaded with seeds. They spread more wild plants than most people realize.

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happytinker · Jul 10, 2018

skullbiker said:
Welcome to receiving bird shit loaded with seeds. They spread more wild plants than most people realize.

I hadn't thought of that. Well at least those little shitters have good taste in tomatoes, cause the seeds i grew from different supermarket cherries don't even compare to these.

SpeakPolish · Jul 10, 2018

The exact same thing is happening to me. I had a strawberry plant, it died. Sad. But a week later I noticed a seedling popping out. I thought it was the strawberry that somehow reseeded itself, later discovered its flowers were peppers. Its still a mystery

Winegums · Jul 11, 2018

Ghaleon said:
This is a good way to deter people who aren't serious about their crosses. People get excited about crossing two peppers and have an appearance and taste in their minds that they're expecting. They haven't stopped to realize that's like knocking your wife up and expecting your child to look exactly like you imagined.

I don't think people understand how F1, F2 and FX work to produce a whole new pepper strain. Doing the actual initial cross and getting F1 seeds and F1 plants is easy but is often done without thinking about what they want to achieve after F1. The dominant (and cross dominant) genes will win out in the F1 generation and usually produce a fairly consistent F1, the recessive genes that you can't see are now hidden and will show up in F2 once they recross. This is why It's really F2 and everything afterwards that determine the final appearance and characteristics of the plant. If you want the recessive genes (like one that inhibits pigment production), you need to grow out a large number of F2 and hope that you get a plant with those genes doubled up.

For example We want to get Yellow pods from a Red and Yellow pepper Cross.

The Red colouration in pepper pods is dominant so it gets capital "S" and the Yellow Colouration is Recessive so it gets lower case "s"

If we crossed a Red pod plant with a Yellow pod plant we would get the gene pairs of Ss or sS. Which both end up with the red gene being displayed just like the original Red pod plant because it is dominant. Yet the key difference is that the yellow recessive gene is now hidden behind the red dominant gene.

Once the plants recombine for F2 you can get SS, Ss, sS and ss. This will result in 3 out of 4 plants being Red podded and 1 out of 4 plants being Yellow. This means we only have a 25% chance of getting our yellow pods on F2 plants. so we should plant as many F2 seeds as possible because our selection of the F2 plants that we can use for breeding F3 will be narrow right from the start.

Now that we have found a yellow podded plant we can recross that plant with itself (or another yellow podded plant) to produce F3 seeds that have the yellow pod genes. This is because we have ss x ss which results in only the recessive genes being paired up for following generations.

I've seen people get discouraged when they cross a light coloured pod with a red pod and it ends up being red every time so they give up and don't try F2 or grow enough of F2 to find what they want.