CaneDog 2019 Hirsute Pursuit – Rocotos, Wilds & Moar

So, here's the new glog for the coming season.  With the indoor grow culled pretty hard now I can focus more on getting ready for what's ahead.  Hoping for a great year, but I’m already a bit behind - the germinators are packed right now and I've still got a round of annuum seeds waiting for their turn.  I guess it wouldn’t feel much like pepper growing though if everything were going perfect.
 
My focus was going to be rocotos with a side of bonnets and some other stuff, but I found I kept planting more and more wilds. Eventually I just kinda went all-in with them and they took on co-main event status. 
 
I’ll start things off with some pics of some of the earlier pube’s.  There’s not too many at this point. Unfortunately, the vast majority just went into germination.
 
First off, Costa Rica Red.  This is the CRR with flattened triangular pods.  I also have an OW CRR that’s a 3-4 lobed “boxy” variety.  I didn't get true seeds off this one last summer, so I have a few of these growing and crossing my fingers they grow true.

 
Rocoto DeSeda.  These guys were from a bush I’d OW’d a few years in a row, but it didn’t make it through this winter

 
 
Rocoto San Camillo

 
 
Gelbe Reisen Variant.  These are from true seeds off a plant I’ve been growing for a few years that was supposed to be Gelbe Riesen, but the pods are more orange vs yellow, rounder/less boxy, and just a touch smaller. I don’t know if it’s a natural variation or it might have crossed with a Costa Rica Orange, but it's a great plant. I have a few of these started and am curious what comes of them.

 
 
Giant Yellow Rocoto.  Suppose I should pinch that bud off.

 
 
Recently hatched Gelbe Riesen sprouts (the parent plant has been a beast for me for a while now) and CAP 217 Hyper-Pube.

 
That’s it for the rocotos for now.  Will try to post up some pics of the early wilds in a little bit. 
 
CD

 

[Devv]

Yeah, I've had plenty of field-crossed plants that turned out great, good production, flavor, and heat and that I've even over-wintered because they were such good plants, but the bottom line is I prefer to know I have true seed on hand that's been dried and stored properly so it's dependable when I want to use or share it, even if that's a few seasons down the line. There's only so many spots in the lineup and unless you're intentionally growing a mystery seed for the fun of not knowing or making a cross to see what might come of it, it's kinda nice to have confidence you'll be getting what you expected.

 
Much agreed on that point; and glad the seeds are germing. I had a few varieties that I had issues with. Finally I got one of each to pop. These were 6  year old seeds, my bad...LOL
 
dang 2 in a row...

 

[CaneDog]

Not many pictures being taken, but lot's of work happening in the grow areas as the final month +/- approaches leading up to plant-out. 
 
My OW rocotos are already spending 24/7 on my south deck and will continue to unless/until a cold front comes through. Younger rocotos and older plants of less cold tolerant varieties are spending some daytime outside, but no nights.
 
All my rocoto and wild varieties are up now, most recently XL Brown with a couple sprouts, Putapario with a few, and 1 red manzano has popped. I wasn't going to plant the manzano this year, but my few year old OW suddenly died and I was lucky to find just 2 seeds (several years old) and even luckier 1 has popped.
 
One of the things I'm doing this year is trying several different sources of Aleppo to see which one(s) I like best and does well in my climate.  I just got through thinning back to 4 in each container and I plan to cull again to 2 at pot-up.  I also removed one of the cotyledons from many of them to create room, so that makes them look a little more ragged than they are.  The first  3 contestants were provided by THP peeps, so a "thanks" goes out to each of them. The other is from seed from the local Redmond Farmers Market).
 
Aleppo Pic

 
   

 

[internationalfish]

Cotys or not, they certainly look happy.
 

I wasn't going to plant the manzano this year, but my few year old OW suddenly died and I was lucky to find just 2 seeds (several years old) and even luckier 1 has popped.

 
Yikes! Glad you got a sprout. Hopefully that little guy grows true.

 

[CaneDog]

Thanks man.  Just saw the other manzano seed sprouted too, so the all-important back-up is in play!

 

[lespaulde]

Awesome news all around CD, and agree that purple jalapeño looks awesome! Fantastic that your seeds are sprouting, even with quite a few years on the clock - clearly you're doing it right...

Nice that you got to move a few plants out already, they must be loving the fresh air!

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

 

[Ghost Pepper Revolution]

Not many pictures being taken, but lot's of work happening in the grow areas as the final month +/- approaches leading up to plant-out. 
 
My OW rocotos are already spending 24/7 on my south deck and will continue to unless/until a cold front comes through. Younger rocotos and older plants of less cold tolerant varieties are spending some daytime outside, but no nights.
 
All my rocoto and wild varieties are up now, most recently XL Brown with a couple sprouts, Putapario with a few, and 1 red manzano has popped. I wasn't going to plant the manzano this year, but my few year old OW suddenly died and I was lucky to find just 2 seeds (several years old) and even luckier 1 has popped.
 
One of the things I'm doing this year is trying several different sources of Aleppo to see which one(s) I like best and does well in my climate.  I just got through thinning back to 4 in each container and I plan to cull again to 2 at pot-up.  I also removed one of the cotyledons from many of them to create room, so that makes them look a little more ragged than they are.  The first  3 contestants were provided by THP peeps, so a "thanks" goes out to each of them. The other is from seed from the local Redmond Farmers Market).
 
Aleppo Pic

 
   

Got enough Aleppos there buddy?

 

[CaneDog]

Meh, I'd be perfectly good with 3 plants, but I have 4 varieties to test and figure a backup of each is a good idea in case of mishap or the OP seed gremlin gets me. Would much rather take the room for only 4, but that seems risky. Still may have to re-think that at plant-out though.
 
 
Good thing they dry and flake so well cause I expect whatever happens I'll be stocking up come harvest.

 

[CaneDog]

Another "starship" sprout, this is an F4 Tatiana (Mini Brown Rocoto x UNK) that puts out golden (hopefully) colored pods.  Curious to see how this one comes out as it was putting out turbo pube shaped pods at F2, but it seems it may have thrown some pointier pods in the F3, maybe more like an Aji Largo influence, which are pretty cool. I have several growing, but not yet sure how many I will have enough room to take to maturity and see what interesting variation may remain.
 

 
Here's a link to a (vertical) video the guy who discovered it put up talking about the F2.

 
 

 

[BigCedar]

Hey CD! Nice grow you got going here! I don't think I've grown a single variety that you have going this year, nor do I know anything about all of them. This should be very fun to watch! I caught up on your 18' glog a bit, your indoor grow game is in its own league! Your "Giant Mini Yellow Brown" is quite a stunning plant I must say. They all look good for that matter! Nice camera work, the cellphone picture had me dying     too freaking funny. Nice work so far, very impressive! I'll be watching   

 

[Devv]

All those Aleppos look like how my Jimmy Nardello's turned out. I'm still trying to give some of  them away...LOL
 
Keep it green buddy!

 

[CaneDog]

Hey CD! Nice grow you got going here! I don't think I've grown a single variety that you have going this year, nor do I know anything about all of them. This should be very fun to watch! I caught up on your 18' glog a bit, your indoor grow game is in its own league! Your "Giant Mini Yellow Brown" is quite a stunning plant I must say. They all look good for that matter! Nice camera work, the cellphone picture had me dying     too freaking funny. Nice work so far, very impressive! I'll be watching   

 
Thanks BC. Good to have you around and posting.  It's going to be a hell of a summer!
 

All those Aleppos look like how my Jimmy Nardello's turned out. I'm still trying to give some of  them away...LOL
 
Keep it green buddy!

 
I had to cull them back with things getting out of control here, but I still have one from each source.  Wish I had more pepper growers local to me cause I really hate throwing the extras away.  BTW - I have a some Nardellos going too and they're absolutely killing it.  They were in the last round I planted and have already caught up with plants well ahead of them.  Hope they produce as well as they're growing.

 

[PaulG]

Looks great as always, CD! Cool that both those
Rocoto seeds germinated for you!

Should be interesting what, if any, differences there
are between the different Aleppos.

 

[CaneDog]

I've been wanting to post a update pic of this lanceolatum for a while, so I took a quick shot while moving stuff around.  Has a cool kinda jungle sprawl thing happening.  I'd like to get a better picture of it with a decent background, but I've been pretty lazy about the camera work lately.
 

 
 

 

[CaneDog]

I topped some wilds a week back and decided to make cuttings of them.  Went a different direction this time using a rooting hormone powder and putting them into a mostly peat seedling mix, versus just stuffing them in water.  Then I put cut 2-liters over them and misted for humidity. 
 
I left only a few smaller leaves on each, but despite that not only did 5/6 quickly drop their leaves, but most of them did stem flops as well. I kept misting the cuttings and inside the 2-liters a couple times a day and now they're standing on their own again.  Fast forward and, despite them being basically sticks, there's been some pretty strong growth at the nodes.
 
This one was a middle stem cut of a tovarii, which had only barely-visible bumps at its nodes when I cut it a week ago.

 
 
This guy is the only one to keep any leaves. It had zero node growth last week, but (though it's hard to see in the pic) they're starting to develop on it as well.  Seems interesting that they appear to have had enough stored energy that without roots or leaves they've developed lateral growth like they have.  I'm hoping they're growing roots too or at least that the new growth will reach a critical mass where photosynthesis can take over and meet all the plants' energy needs including root growth.
 

 

[Bhuter]

Holy Pube list! Fantastic! They all look GREAT!

I've only grown Brown Rocoto and Aji Oro as far as Pubescens go. I didn't really care for the lateral growth the Rocoto expressed and I only got 3 pods. The Oro on the other hand was uber productive, even for a first year plant...and it grew "normally" according to me. Lol
I have 2 Oro's this year. Gonna try my hand at jelly/jam.

That Lanceolatum looks terrific! Like arms with multiple fingers hanging down. I'm currently (still) waiting on Tovarii seeds to pop. I shoulda started those a loooong time ago.

Awesome! I hope everything thrives!

 

[CaneDog]

Holy Pube list! Fantastic! They all look GREAT!

I've only grown Brown Rocoto and Aji Oro as far as Pubescens go. I didn't really care for the lateral growth the Rocoto expressed and I only got 3 pods. The Oro on the other hand was uber productive, even for a first year plant...and it grew "normally" according to me. Lol
I have 2 Oro's this year. Gonna try my hand at jelly/jam.

That Lanceolatum looks terrific! Like arms with multiple fingers hanging down. I'm currently (still) waiting on Tovarii seeds to pop. I shoulda started those a loooong time ago.

Awesome! I hope everything thrives!

 
Thanks man.  I know what you mean about the rocotos.  There's the sprawlers and the tallers and the upright profile is just easier to deal with. I do have one variety that's supposed to climb like a vine though, and I'm interested to see how that one turns out. 
 
It's great that the Oro came through for you and you have a variety you can depend on. I've heard good things about the it in hotter conditions, but seems not everyone is able to get that strong production.  
 
Good luck with the Tovarii.  Hopefully they decide not to take forever to sprout.

 

[Bhuter]

 
Thanks man.  I know what you mean about the rocotos.  There's the sprawlers and the tallers and the upright profile is just easier to deal with. I do have one variety that's supposed to climb like a vine though, and I'm interested to see how that one turns out. 
 
It's great that the Oro came through for you and you have a variety you can depend on. I've heard good things about the it in hotter conditions, but seems not everyone is able to get that strong production.  
 
Good luck with the Tovarii.  Hopefully they decide not to take forever to sprout.

Thank you very much! I have one row in my garden that gets about 60% more shade than the other rows. I've heard about how temperamental Pubes can be to the heat, so I put them in this shade-row. I got two harvests like this on a first year plant.

I'm very interested to see how your mini brown cross turns out. I love brown pods. Maybe I'll try a mini next season. Do mini Rocoto plants grow sideways, too?

I'll bet your meals are SCRUM during harvest!

 

[CaneDog]

Nice! That batch alone is a solid harvest, Bhuter, let alone 2x.  Obviously they were happy with the location. Not only great looking pods, but you're getting so much pepper out of each pod.  Do you remember how much those guys weighed? 
 
This is my first experience with the mini-brown, but it's supposed to be a fairly small and compact plant for a rocoto. It's hard to tell how upright it is from the pics I've seen, but my best guess is it's not a low sprawler, but somewhere between that and the very upright types. 
 
The mini, XL Brown, and Tatiana F4 are the "browns" I have growing now, though the Tat hasn't thrown brown pods to my knowledge.  I plan to post pics of the along the way, so check back and if you see something you like I'm happy to shoot you some seeds after the season.

 

[Bhuter]

Nice! That batch alone is a solid harvest, Bhuter, let alone 2x.  Obviously they were happy with the location. Not only great looking pods, but you're getting so much pepper out of each pod.  Do you remember how much those guys weighed? 
 
This is my first experience with the mini-brown, but it's supposed to be a fairly small and compact plant for a rocoto. It's hard to tell how upright it is from the pics I've seen, but my best guess is it's not a low sprawler, but somewhere between that and the very upright types. 
 
The mini, XL Brown, and Tatiana F4 are the "browns" I have growing now, though the Tat hasn't thrown brown pods to my knowledge.  I plan to post pics of the along the way, so check back and if you see something you like I'm happy to shoot you some seeds after the season.

Thank you very much! I don't recall if I weighed any of them. Weird. I usually do.

I'll definitely be following along! I liked the flavor or the full sized brown rocoto...I'm sure the smaller ones will be just as tasty! Awesome! I'd love to try some of those seed next season! Thank you very much! My favorite pods are the browns/caramel/cappuccino, orange, and peach. I'd love some seeds from the browns! Woohoo!

 

[nmlarson]

Whoops, and my lone aji largo...

 
heck yes saiias - go 'hawks!

 
Wow!  Everything is looking great!