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

Green peppers

Are all green peppers just picked before they can ripen? Are there any peppers that are green when fully ripened?
 
There are only a handful of peppers that are green when "ripe", the grand majority of green peppers are just unripe fruits and if left on plant will eventually ripen to another color.
 
Some varieties have to be picked green - as are certain, but not all, bell peppers - but ones that mature green have a gene that prevents the chlorophyll in the immature pepper from breaking down and going away when the pepper ripens.  The retention of chlorophyll in the ripe pod is what causes an otherwise red ripe pepper to appear brown.  Retention of chlorophyll in a yellow-ripe pepper causes it to mature green. 
 
You can make any brown pepper mature green by crossing it with a yellow pepper and then selecting for two recessive genes, the one that causes the yellow color and the one that causes chlorophyll retention.  There are also various shades in between a mature light green and dark brown based on a combination of the immature pod color (a light yellow-green to a dark green due to how much chlorophyll the pods produce) and the mature pod color.
 
Back
Top