Hello! Let me say first thank all of you for creating this site, it is obvious that a lot of work went into the community.
My name is RespectTheTree and I'm a PhD candidate plant breeder. I work with woody perennial trees, but I dabble in everything including peppers. In fact, peppers were my first introduction into plant breeding while earning my bachelor's degree. I absolutely love plants and plant breeding is simply the most rewarding career, and I'm looking to share that with the internet. I came up with this half-baked idea to do a distributed, community pepper breeding project using a popular social media website to disseminate information, plan crosses, and ultimately distribute hybrid seed to participating growers and make selections to advance in the breeding program. I'm not necessarily here to promote any of that though - I'm not sure your community rules and it seems potentially disrespectful. However, I am here to shamelessly barter for rare and wild species to use towards the goal of community pepper breeding, but I sincerely hope I can contribute reciprocally in time.
So much of the breeding that I do, whether academically or professionally, is trade secret and can never be shared which is really disheartening on a level. With peppers I want to do the opposite and discover how traits are inherited as a community, and share that information on a level that is accessible to everyone - because plant breeding is really fun and I desperately want more citizen plant breeders in the world. Perhaps we can even create a useful variety to share with the world.
Best,
RTT
My name is RespectTheTree and I'm a PhD candidate plant breeder. I work with woody perennial trees, but I dabble in everything including peppers. In fact, peppers were my first introduction into plant breeding while earning my bachelor's degree. I absolutely love plants and plant breeding is simply the most rewarding career, and I'm looking to share that with the internet. I came up with this half-baked idea to do a distributed, community pepper breeding project using a popular social media website to disseminate information, plan crosses, and ultimately distribute hybrid seed to participating growers and make selections to advance in the breeding program. I'm not necessarily here to promote any of that though - I'm not sure your community rules and it seems potentially disrespectful. However, I am here to shamelessly barter for rare and wild species to use towards the goal of community pepper breeding, but I sincerely hope I can contribute reciprocally in time.
So much of the breeding that I do, whether academically or professionally, is trade secret and can never be shared which is really disheartening on a level. With peppers I want to do the opposite and discover how traits are inherited as a community, and share that information on a level that is accessible to everyone - because plant breeding is really fun and I desperately want more citizen plant breeders in the world. Perhaps we can even create a useful variety to share with the world.
Best,
RTT