Deolater 2019

deolater · May 18, 2019

podz said:
I am guessing they will recover with a vigor! Photos or it didn't happen :-)

Here's the Lemon Drop, Honda Odyssey minivan for scale.

Looks like it's recovering nicely. Gets thirsty faster than it used to, but I guess fewer roots will do that.

deolater · May 19, 2019

Here's the droopy kratky from last week.

Not droopy any longer, and getting even bigger.

deolater · May 24, 2019

Welcome to Summer, a month early!!!

For the rest of the world, 90 degrees Fahrenheit is about 32 C, while 95F is 35C.

So it's hot out, and humid enough that Nordic people would probably sit around naked outside, scratching themselves with birch branches. That's what you do in a sauna, right?

Anyway, speaking of Nordics, Podz was posting a bunch of shots of his pubes, so here are mine. Montufar, shipped from Finland, to be precise.

The first one gets a couple of hours of full sun on my back deck, while the second only ever gets filtered sun. They weren't the same size to begin with, so I'm not sure of the value of this experiment. At this point I'm not sure where to put them. Everything I have read says they're not really made for my climate.

Speaking of pods, one of my Reaper X Clavo plants is way ahead of all the other chinenses in that department.

They remind me of habs right now. Of course I know that early pods are never a great indication of what will actually grow.

I also am getting pods on the overwintered Lemon Drop, which is great.

Most chinense plants aren't making pods yet, but they do have flowers and most of them are getting huge

Local nursery Reaper

Finally, like a proper pepper addict, I have all these seedlings I started a month ago

They're growing a bit slowly, I'm not sure what I can do to kick them into high gear.

Not everything is great, two of my plants have problems in particular, and I've made a guidance request thread here: http://thehotpepper.com/topic/71513-yet-another-whats-happening-to-my-plants-post/

PaulG · May 25, 2019

Plants look great, Deo. I hope you get a handle
on the two plants showing stress.

deolater · May 26, 2019

Hung out yesterday with the friend who got me started on peppers.

He has an extra Tepin X Lemon Drop, so I guess I need to update the list....

stc3248 · May 26, 2019

Looking great up to this point! We're having a bit of a heatwave next door in South Carolina too...98 the next three days. Even when fully watered mid-day my plants look terrible but bounce back by sunset. Tepin X Lemon drop sounds interesting! I have a tepin x ???(chinense) that sprouted from seeds I ordered hope they turn out cool.

deolater · May 29, 2019

stc3248 said:
Looking great up to this point! We're having a bit of a heatwave next door in South Carolina too...98 the next three days. Even when fully watered mid-day my plants look terrible but bounce back by sunset. Tepin X Lemon drop sounds interesting! I have a tepin x ???(chinense) that sprouted from seeds I ordered hope they turn out cool.

98?! And I thought 95 was bad. Are you on the coastal plain or further inland?

Normally we don't get worse than about 90 where I am, just north of the Atlanta heat island and about 1000ft elevation. But this year it has been over 90 for two weeks, and it's only May. I am not looking forward to August.

Well, except for ripe pods, of course.

I've never seen straight-up Tepins before, so I'm not really sure what to expect. I'm also kind of surprised to see so many Tepin X [different species]. Definitely looking forward to seeing yours as well.

deolater · May 29, 2019

Morning Pod Patrol!

Cayenne still doing its thing

Reaper X Clavo. This plant is currently in a 1 gallon pot. I'll pot up this weekend.

Reaper X Clavo (different plant). Pods look like they're going to be a different shape. I've posted this plant before, now there are 9 pods on it. "Mr. Fatalii" said the idea of this cross was to make an extra-prolific superhot, it looks like it might be working

White fatalii, with bonus disgusting fuzzy bug (killed after I took the photo, RIP: Rest Insect, Pulverized)

???? - This is from some seeds I saved from last year but didn't label. It's probably Ghost, but Reaper and Lemon drop were also candidates (I saved seeds from all 3, but forgot to label). Plant habit points to Ghost, as does pod shape.

Purple Bhut X Primo. Even before pods I saw two phenos from these seeds. One with purple growth (like this one), and one with green growth. This is one gnarly pod.

Today was my first time feeding with Alaska Fish fertilizer. Man that stuff is gross. I hope the plants like it.

So far my only real pest problem (aside from one sick plant in my other thread) is these disgusting white fuzzy bugs. There aren't many of them, but they jump into the next county when you go to squash them. I've gotten good at predicting the jump and killing them. Might have to use neem if more show up though.

Oddly no aphids... yet.

Orekoc · May 29, 2019

The Purple Bhut X Primo, from what I can tell, the purple is a dominate gene, so once you are passed the F1 generation (seeds from the original cross) the green plants will start popping up. Seed from the green plants should never produce purple plants. Without a lot of luck, or careful planning and testing, seeds from the purple plants may produce green plants for generations down the line. There is only a 25% chance that seeds from the purple plants will be true for the purple gene and only produce purple plants. The fun of dominate genes.

I started some Reaper x Lemon Drop and Primo x Lemon drop and got purple plants. So either they were crossed with a purple plant, or the seed got mixed up. I'm growing all of those out to see what I get.

I'll get off the pedantic horse now.

deolater · Jun 3, 2019

Orekoc said:
The Purple Bhut X Primo, from what I can tell, the purple is a dominate gene, so once you are passed the F1 generation (seeds from the original cross) the green plants will start popping up. Seed from the green plants should never produce purple plants. Without a lot of luck, or careful planning and testing, seeds from the purple plants may produce green plants for generations down the line. There is only a 25% chance that seeds from the purple plants will be true for the purple gene and only produce purple plants. The fun of dominate genes.

I started some Reaper x Lemon Drop and Primo x Lemon drop and got purple plants. So either they were crossed with a purple plant, or the seed got mixed up. I'm growing all of those out to see what I get.

I'll get off the pedantic horse now.

As a brown-eyed guy with blue-eyed kids, I know all about recessive coloration genes popping up in later generations ;-)

Lemon drop X Reaper? That's going to be interesting!

deolater · Jun 5, 2019

It's probably a bit early for this, but I'm starting to think that my unlabeled seeds from last year might be an unintentional cross.

Here's a picture of my ghosts from last year:

And here's what the saved seeds plant is growing

Last year the ghosts were wrinkly overall, but the small-scale texture of the skin was smooth. The unknown pepper this year has blistery skin like a reaper.

I guess without a DNA test, we'll never know, eh?

PaulG · Jun 6, 2019

Whatever the case, it looks like a real winner!

Will be interesting to see the mature pods.

deolater · Jun 10, 2019

We had alternating rainstorms and thunderstorms the last few days, and a lot of my plants fell over. I know that staking pepper plants is controversial, but most of my plants are staked now.

Temperatures have been down to the mid 80s, which is nice after those couple of weeks of 90+

I think my cayenne plant is actually yellow/golden cayenne

Not sure what happened with the pod though. It doesn't look like blossom end rot to me. Just cleanly sliced open

Tons of pods on the purple ghost. This plant is looking like a little tree. Super bushy despite the fact that I've never pruned it.

White Fatalii being all white and fatal... How do I know when these are ripe?

7-Pot Bubblegum Yellow. You can already tell there's something unusual about the calyx here.

Numex Joe E. Parker "Anaheim". I wish I had more of these plants. Next year.

Tepin X Lemon Drop

Labeled as "Reaper X Clavo Red". I'm thinking maybe I dropped a habanero seed in the wrong spot. One tiny mini pod is turning orange.

Reaper X 7-Pot Douglah

Now if only all this rain would stop so I can apply some fertilizer.

PaulG · Jun 10, 2019

Some serious podding here, Deo!

Not sure about the Cayenne. almost looks
like mechanical or physical damage of some
kind, like the pod bent and then split below
the bend.

Always sumptin' interesting in pepper grows, eh!

Anyway, looking good in your neck of the woods.
Hope you get a chance to feed the plants soon.

deolater · Jun 13, 2019

Well, we've been eating some hot peppers in the office this week.

A couple of days ago it was this pod

The plant was labeled "Reaper X Clavo", but I am now 100% sure that it's just a orange hab plant. This tiny pod ripened first, so I brought it in to the office. We ended up cutting it into (tiny) quarters and four of us ate it. Good hab flavor, and respectable heat.

Earlier in the year I gave my boss some plants, including a jalapeno plant which is producing like crazy for him.

He brought in some pods and cut them into pieces for people to try. I should have been warned by the Cheshire cat grin he had. Those pods are painfully hot. Not hot like a chinense, but hot like licking a red-hot belt sander. Wow.

They also look funny

Yesterday I killed some sort of beetle that was chewing on the stem of a pod on my other "Reaper X Clavo" plant. I guess he has chewed most of the way, because the pod fell off.

This one is at least obviously not a hab!

We took turns talking smack and cutting increasingly large slices for ourselves.

Definitely the hottest thing I've ever eaten, but with a much cleaner burn than that overheated jalapeno. A more enjoyable pain.

A couple of coworkers noted a "intense fake fruit flavor, like bubblegum or something". I didn't get that. For all of us the burn was very intense and localized at the back of the tongue. I even tried to spread the pain around by swishing water around in my mouth, but it stubbornly burned in the same place.

I'm looking forward to ripe pods

deolater · Jun 17, 2019

Is there an insect that looks like a pile of dead planthoppers?

I have a few of these on my plants. They're gross looking, but they move like predators so I'm not sure I should kill them

nmlarson · Jun 17, 2019

Wooly aphid?

deolater · Jun 17, 2019

nmlarson said:
Wooly aphid?

I don't think so. This guy is big, like the size of a fingertip.

Also the wooly part appears to be dead critters stuck to the back of something.

It isn't settling to eat the plant, it's running around like a ladybug nymph. I'm going to try to catch one to get a better look.

PaulG · Jun 18, 2019

I found a similar insect online - it was a kind of ladybug aphid eater.

deolater · Jun 30, 2019

PaulG said:
I found a similar insect online - it was a kind of ladybug aphid eater.

Thanks Paul. I think it might be a lacewing larvae based on googling.

Deolater 2019

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