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breeding Growing lots of peppers: cross-pollination a problem?

Dr.Peppar

Dr.Peppar

I currently have 7 or so different types producing real nice for several months now. Meanwhile, I have on the order of 20 more in smaller stages of life, with a barage of new seeds coming in on trade. SO by next spring I'll be dealing with 50 or more different types, not many having more than one plant of each. Overwintering in a warehouse wher eI can move them in and out of any cold days with a forklift into an indoor grow shelter.

Obviously I want the peppers, but I also want the seeds, as many as I can get. But will the seeds be unreliable? Having so many growing near each other?
 
In short yes the seeds WILL be unreliable. Not that i see that as a bad thing as many people do.

Preventing cross pollination is not an easy task.
 
Peppers are more likely to self pollinate than to cross pollinate but you just never know what your going to get unless you take precautions to further raise the odds in your favor. There are many tecniques for isolating plants or individual flowers. Some techniques just involve growing a group of plants of the same type in clusters and chosing pods(for seeds) from deep within the cluster where pollinating insects are less likely to travel.
Personally I have very few problems with crss pollination but I do try to isolate a few special plants each year by bringing them into the house(or empty greenhouse) for a few days to a week or so while the first flowers become pollinated, then I label the pods and return the plant outside. You can also use tulle to wrap your plants or flowers, or you can plant varieties a mile and a half apart;)
Good luck
 
I dont seem to notice bees paying a whoel lot of attention to them. The bees mostly stay preoccupied with the Stevia actually. They cant stay away from them. The way I've been planting things here and there this year, flowering seems to not all be at the same time, but I have a feeling that when they go out for the spring they might explode at once and cycle at similar paces.

If I put them out to get them to flower, and then forklift them back into the grow shelter (with lights), would this cut down on cross pollination? It's mainly a bee / wind issue I presume.
 
By what Potawie said i would think that you would be better off to get them to flower inside. After the first flowers have been pollinated you can label the pods and return outside.
 
On a Dutch chilli growing website they advise growers to put a teabag on an unopened flower and to tap it lightly once every day until it has pollinated herself. Remove bag and label pod if it starts growing. Works very good if you have lots of varieties and don't need thousands of seeds, just a few hundreds. Check the pictures on the site below.

If you can't find the teabags check asian shops.

Source: http://www.chillipepers.nl/artikel/1/Raszuiver_houden.html
 
You don't need to use a real teabag, just use some tulle to wrap whole plants or individual flowers. You can also try the "glue tecnique"
 
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