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HeatMiser's Keeping it Simple With Old Seeds 2020 Grow

Well here it is - after a two year hiatus, I decided to get myself a new grow light (HLG 100), grow peppers again and join this community.

I decided to it simple this year and grow fewer varieties from seeds I already have. These were packaged in 2014 or earlier so it will serve as a viability test as well.

After talking with my wife, we decided on the following 4 varieties

1 Super Hot:
Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. Seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute packaged in 2013.

1 Ornamental:
Numex Twilight. Seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute packaged in 2012.

2 Varieties for Cooking:
Jalafuego. Seeds from tomatogrowers.com. Packaged before 2014
Chiltepin. Seeds I collected after a trip to Texas in 2014.

I have the following goals for this season
  1. Get a decent batch of "hot" Jalapenos. You have to be lucky to find a hot Jalapeno at the store. We plan to pickle them to be used in NACHOS
  2. Incorporate Chiltepin peppers in our cooking (salsas, tacos, etc)
  3. Make some powder with the Trinidad Scorpion Peppers. I've made Ghost Pepper Powder before and it's amazing in stuff like Pho.
  4. Experiment with DWC and Kratky for peppers. My experience is with Dutch Buckets.
  5. Experiment with outdoor hydroponics. Success here means I'll be able to plant more peppers in future years
  6. Try crossing peppers. Always been curious, never really tried it. This year, it's happening.
  7. Growing a Trinidad Scorpion in my office at work. Dare my boss to try one…

The plan is as follows:
  • 1 Trinidad Scorpion and 1 Jalafuego in 5 gal DWC indoors.
  • Grow 1 Chiltepin and 1 Numex Twilight indoors in smaller Kratky containers.
  • Grow 1 Trinidad Scorpion in a 5 gal DWC at work

As the weather improves, I'll set up 1 Trinidad Scorpion and 1 Jalafuego in 5 gal Kratky bucket outdoors. I'll also clone as many plants as I can get away with and put them in soil containers outside.

That's it for plans…

Here's the actual progress so far

12/20/2019 -
• Started soaking Chiltepin seeds in a weak solution of chamomille tea
• Planted Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, Jalafuego and Numex Twilight seeds in rockwool cubes. 2 seeds of each per cube. Placed on a heat mat inside an airtight container with some water on the bottom for moisture

12/21/2019
• Planted Chiltepin seeds
• 3 rockwool cubes with seeds soaked in weak chamomille tea solution for about 25 hours
• 3 rockwool cubes with seeds soaked in 9 parts water, 1 part bleach solution for 5 minutes

12/23/2019
• Noticed a hook in one of the Jalafuego cubes

12/26/2019
• Hooks on all 3 Jalafuego cubes
• One Twilight cube has a hook

12/27/2019
• Hooks on all 3 Twilight cubes. One of them is a bit leggy
• Noticed one Chiltepin seed starting to sprout, from the cube that was soaked in bleach
• Transferred Jalafuego and Twilights to the light and gave them some food, General Hydroponics mild vegetative solution

12/28/2019
• One Jalafuego cube has 2 seedlings, new hook came out.

12/29/2019
• One Chiltepin hook coming out of the cube. Moved the cube to the light
• All 6 Jalafuego seeds have sprouted. 3 seedlings are now upright and 3 hooks are coming out. Germination rate is 6/6

12/30/2019
• Hook from Trinidad Moruga Scorpion came out. Moved to light

1/1/2020
• Hook from Chiltepin seed in bleach solution. Moved to light
• Hook from Chiltepin seed in chamomile tea came out. Moved to light

1/2/2020
• Last Twilight sprouted. Germination rate is 6/6
• Two more Trinidad Moruga Hooks

1/3/2020
• Moved two Trinidad Moruga cubes to light

1/5/2020
• Another Trinidad Moruga sprouted. Germination rate is 4/6

1/7/2020
• Roots from Jalafuego, Twilight and Chiltepin started poking through the bottom of the rockwool cubes. Moved the best plants to their own individual kratky container. Using Mild Vegetative solution from Flora 3 Part solution
• One T5 bulb died. Changed the light to the HLG 100.

1/9/2020
• New Trinidad Moruga Sprouted. Germination Rate: 5/6
• Added an air stone to the Jalafuego Kratky container turning it into a DWC.

1/10/2020
  • Moved another Jalafuego to its own Kratky container

Thanks for reading all of this... I'll be posting some pictures soon!
 
Click to expand...
Thanks PaulG! I'm really excited too... lots of things to try out this year.
 
Here are the pics I took today
 
IMG_3517.JPG

Community bin - peppers and lettuce
 
IMG_3518.JPG

Top Left: Chiltepin
Top Right: Numex Twilight
Bottom row: Jalafuego
 
IMG_3519.JPG

3 cubes on the left: Trinidad Moruga Scorpion
Top Right: Jalafuego
Middle Right: Numex Twilight
Bottom Right: Chiltepin
 
CaneDog said:
 
Figured I'd fix what I assumed was a just long typo, HM.  
 
Glad to see another PNW'r aboard.
 
Good luck with your grow!
Click to expand...
 
Haha, apparently he's into spicy food... we'll see just how hot in a few months.. :onfire:
 
bpiela said:
Best of luck with your grow.  Things are starting out great!  Now, you need to spend a little time updating your profile pic.  With a name like "Heat Miser", there is only one pic you should use.  Now let's get it done!  :P
Click to expand...
 
You are correct sir! There ya have it, just needed to get the big stuff set up first!
 
Slick looking start, HeatMiser!

HLG 100 is a great light. Nice choice.

What are the brown spikes in some of your rockwool cubes?

Also, bleach? Tell me about that?
 
Uncle_Eccoli said:
Slick looking start, HeatMiser!

HLG 100 is a great light. Nice choice.

What are the brown spikes in some of your rockwool cubes?

Also, bleach? Tell me about that?
Click to expand...
 
Thanks! Yes, I'm liking the light so far, but the thing is BRIGHT. I've seen people get great results (including you) so I've decided to try it out myself this year.
 
The spikes are just toothpicks used to identify the seedlings. I have notes mentioning how many toothpicks each variety has. For the chiltepin, I tried two different soaking methods (tea and bleach) and I identified them separately to see which one is better at aiding in germination. Bleach seems to be the winner this far.
 
So, for bleach. It is a method I found in The Pepper Garden book by Paul Bosland that supposedly aids in germination. You mix 1 part bleach with 9 parts water (the book calls for 10, but I wanted a little more oomph) and soak the seeds in that solution for 5 minutes. It is supposed to make the seed casing softer, imitating the process the seeds go through when the peppers get eaten by birds. By going through the birds digestive tracts, the acids the seeds are exposed to help in germination when they come out the other end.
 
The book also discusses other methods people have tried to help germination, like collecting seagull guano and mixing the seeds in. Now that's a method I don't see myself trying out...
 
HeatMiser said:
So, for bleach. It is a method I found in The Pepper Garden book by Paul Bosland that supposedly aids in germination. You mix 1 part bleach with 9 parts water (the book calls for 10, but I wanted a little more oomph) and soak the seeds in that solution for 5 minutes. It is supposed to make the seed casing softer, imitating the process the seeds go through when the peppers get eaten by birds.
Click to expand...
Huh. Hadn't heard of that one. Thanks!
 
Here's how things look like at the moment:
 
This week, I gave up on some chiltepin seeds that hadn't germinated. I realized that I could probably use the heat mat to keep the roots warm on some of my Trinidad Scorpion plants that are not growing as fast as I'd like. The plants are in the coldest room in the house (something about having electric equipment surrounded by water and a curious toddler running around the house didn't quite seem right) so I think that might be a factor.
 
I also graduated some of the seedlings to their individual kratky containers since their roots started to poke out of the rockwool cubes. I'd expect them to start growing faster once their roots reach the gro-juice.
 
Some pics of the plants:
 
IMG_3526.JPG

Group shot...
 
IMG_3528.JPG

Jalafuego plants look happy
 
IMG_3529.JPG

Numex Twilights are coming along. There's some leaf curl in one of the plants but I'm not too worried or concerned at this point.
 
IMG_3530.JPG

Chiltepins are growing slow, hopefully they start picking up the pace since the roots are already getting down to the nutrients.
 
IMG_3531.JPG

This Trinidad Scorpion is the one with the most developed roots, so I put it in its own kratky container. I'm hoping for at least another one to catch up since I'd like to take it to the office at work.
 
Update for this week...
 
There are only a couple plants that haven't been moved to their own containers, 1 Trinidad Scorpion and 1 Numex Twilight that I'll subject to some experiments. Seems like the heat mat worked in getting the roots warm inside the rockwool. The rest are chugging along and have been focusing on establishing a root system.
 
Some pics
 
 
Group shot:
IMG_3576.JPG

 
Jalafuegos kicking into high gear...
IMG_3577.JPG

 
The Numex Twilight are not that far behind.
IMG_3578.JPG

 
They've opted to start growing side shoots already. A close-up:
IMG_3579.JPG

 
Chiltepins are still small. This is my first time growing them and I'm surprised at how fuzzy they are:
IMG_3581.JPG

 
They are also working on being bushy:
IMG_3583.JPG

 
Trinidad Scorpions are the slowest growing, but that's expected. Now that their root system has reached the nutrients, they should start growing a bit faster and I should start looking into moving one of them to my office at work:
IMG_3584.JPG

 
The last Trinidad Scorpion still in the rockwool cube is doing fine. It's got the biggest leaves, but the roots still haven't popped out of the cube for some reason...
IMG_3585.JPG

 
I'll see if I have time this weekend to paint the containers to minimize the amount of light that gets into the nutrient solution. Otherwise I'll have to think about algae...
 
Looking good!
 
Definitely get some paint on there when you have time. I let mine go unpainted until I had both algae and root rot... the algae went away basically immediately when I cut off the light, but the root rot is still a problem for one of them, which may not make it.
 
internationalfish said:
Looking good!
 
Definitely get some paint on there when you have time. I let mine go unpainted until I had both algae and root rot... the algae went away basically immediately when I cut off the light, but the root rot is still a problem for one of them, which may not make it.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Fish! 
Yes, can't let nasties start growing in there. Seems like once they settle in, things start snowballing so better do something now
 
 
CaneDog said:
They're all looking good, HM, but I'm really digging the bushy little tepins.  Are those both ones you collected wild in Texas?
Click to expand...
 
Thanks CD, yes, those tepins are actually my favorite so far. I wonder if the light they're under has caused them to want to grow wide instead of up. Looking forward to see their progression. And yes, I got the seeds from peppers I bought during a trip to Texas since I haven't seen them here. I still have seeds if you'd like some and have room in your grow... let me know.
 
:)  I might be very interested in trying those, though it might be better for me to wait instead of adding to my grow now - if you'd be willing to share in the future, that is, and if you still have seeds.  Then again, I'm super tempted...  Ha!  I have poor impulse control for cool new seeds.  I really appreciate the offer.  Thanks HM.  If it's cool, let me think about it.
 
CaneDog said:
:)  I might be very interested in trying those, though it might be better for me to wait instead of adding to my grow now - if you'd be willing to share in the future, that is, and if you still have seeds.  Then again, I'm super tempted...  Ha!  I have poor impulse control for cool new seeds.  I really appreciate the offer.  Thanks HM.  If it's cool, let me think about it.
Click to expand...
 
Sure thing, let me know. I will be saving seeds from all my plants at the end of the grow so will have some available.
 
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