Winegums said:
How did the original bonnets come to exist? How did any of our favourite "Land race" peppers come to exist? Some Chili head or group of Chili heads 100s of years ago likely went through the work of selectively harvesting from plants and developed their own strains, looking for genetic mutations and other desirable traits that they wanted to keep. New strains like MoA SB are just another land race pepper being born, the only difference is that you're seeing happen in your life time. It basically happens when a culture decides to adopt the strain as a wide spread crop that is grown for years and years.
Sure, original Bonnets and other landraces were cultivated via crosses and/or careful selection over many years, most often long ago. I get that, and i think it''s awesome if/when modern-day ppl are trying to
carefully set their own strains. I have no beef with new varieties in general, and no gripe with positive progress, at all. However, I disagree re: the MOA SB's origins. The fact is, the Ministry decided to try to set a "correct" Scotch Bonnet because all these no-talent hacks and low-ethics jabronis were destroying the classic Scotch Bonnet thru deliberate out-crosses, sloppy propagation, misidentification of Congo/Hab-types as Bonnets, etc... and as a result, there were a lot of sub-standard chiles being offered as "Scotch Bonnets" in Jamrock. They didn't develop the MOA SB to create a new landrace; they developed the MOA SB to save an existing landrace b/c they thought it was threatened by the shenanigans of shitty growers who had diluted and polluted the strain.
My concerns go beyond just ppl's desires to build the hottest and gnarliest peppers; i also see ppl who are trying to develop crosses to make cutesy names for a strain that doesn''t even exist yet, or b/c they are whimsically hoping that a cross will display the exact 2 traits they imagined it would when they dreamed up the cross. Or you see brand-new growers who ask questions that make it evident that maybe they're not yet ready to play ad scientist, b/c they understand neither
Capsicums nor genetics just yet.... but they are super amped to cross a Reaper with a Bell or whatever. In short, we've got some no- or low-talent hacks who are going to follow this folly just long enough to muddy the waters and share some seeds. Now, that ain't the end of the world and it is just some pepper plants, so no big deal i guess, especially given that i'm not yet having trouble obtaining seeds that grow true with just a little bit of hunting and cash....
I'm just saying,this is a thing that, if you're going to do it, please make every effort to do it right... and if you do it wrong, please make every effort to mitigate the damage