seeds Germinating seeds from commercial dried pods

[Avon Barksdale]

A lot of people wonder if seeds from dried pods bought from the grocery store are viable, so I tested a bunch this year. I had tried a few in the past and got mixed results, but that was outside in the summer and I didn't watch them too closely, didn't water very much, and didn't keep track of which was which. So this year I decided to do an experiment and took about 5 or 6 seeds of every store-bought dried pod I had on hand and tried germinating them, all but one variety germinated (New Mexico). Pequin, de arbol, puya, guajillo, ancho, japones, and cascabel all germinated at very high rates, I didn't keep track of percentages or germination times but the percentages and times were about the same or better than seeds from commercial seed vendors. So I'm guessing these are probably sun dried.

I'm not sure why the New Mexico seeds failed to germinate, maybe these were dried in ovens at high temperatures? The New Mexico pods are a different brand (Melissa/Don Enrique). The rest are all El Paisano I believe. I'm going to grow a few of them out and see if they grow true, probably de arbol, puya, pequin, and guajillo. I'm also germinating seeds from two brands of crushed red pepper to see which variety/varieties they use, one is Kroger and the other McCormick. Probably cayenne, de arbol, or some small hot frutescens or annum variety popular in India or Asia. I read an article by a guy who buys spices for McCormick in India, and it seems that they just buy large sacks of peppers from farmers at markets over there, so it's probably a mix of peppers and may not be consistently the same variety/varieties anyway. So hopefully I'll be able to grow some out and see what I get.

Hopefully someone will find this information useful.

 

[synclinorium]

I was wondering the same thing last year and so I tried germinating seeds from dried Aji Amarillo and Aji Panca pods I found at our local food co-op and had good germ rates on them. Kind of like your first attempt, I wasn't very good about monitoring them so eventually the seedlings died, but I'd like to try it again at some point.

You're usually better off the more color is retained in the dried pods, as that tends to suggest they were dried at lower temperatures.

 

[Avon Barksdale]

You're usually better off the more color is retained in the dried pods, as that tends to suggest they were dried at lower temperatures.

Yeah that's what I was thinking as well. The pods I dry at 95F are much closer to the color of the fresh pods than the ones I buy from grocery stores. They're a much brighter/lighter red color. I would think that sun dried pods would take on a darker color though, even when dried at relatively low temperatures. Sun dried tomatoes are usually fairly dark.

 

[synclinorium]

Yeah that's what I was thinking as well. The pods I dry at 95F are much closer to the color of the fresh pods than the ones I buy from grocery stores. They're a much brighter/lighter red color. I would think that sun dried pods would take on a darker color though, even when dried at relatively low temperatures. Sun dried tomatoes are usually fairly dark.

True... I haven't tried sun drying pods yet. Most of mine have either gone in the dehydrator or just dried on the countertop because I forgot about them... in the latter case, they still retain most of their original colors.