heat How to make the hottest peppers - if you know a good plant geneticist

[Ferby]

Anyway to increase the number of copies of the gene product will work, so yes, in theory that would work too. The problem with consitutively active promotors is it`s hard to predict the outcome, especially if there is feedback inhibition at some step or steps in the biosynthestic pathway.

I Guess we still don't know enough about peppers

IMO we shouldn't GMO peppers. Traditional breeding has been good enough. They really don't need to be any hotter.

I agree. If you need it hotter there's always extracts. It's fun to try growing the hottest, but GMO isn't part of the "game".

Nigel:
What about colchichine? It isn't considered GMO and would propably give some massive pods/plants maybe with the possibility of selecting even hotter peppers. It would also be cool for some crazy crosses i think.

 

[Nigel]

I Guess we still don't know enough about peppers


I agree. If you need it hotter there's always extracts. It's fun to try growing the hottest, but GMO isn't part of the "game".

Nigel:
What about colchichine? It isn't considered GMO and would propably give some massive pods/plants maybe with the possibility of selecting even hotter peppers. It would also be cool for some crazy crosses i think.

Sure, inducing polyploidy with colchicine could give a lot of interesting phenotypes. The problem is I think you`d have to grow out hundreds to thousands of plants to give it a fair chance. Maybe you could do it next year, with Moruga blend as the starting point    If you get little or no effects at least you`d have a good cash crop.

 
Yeah, I consider it GMO if you add back an extra copy of one gene. Other things can change without our notice by doing this. This happened with the protein in wheat, which may be the reason for the rise in gluten intolerance. I'm not exactly against GMOs, but we don't test them ethically or even properly. I'm more interested in the gene that blocks heat (if we made sure nothing else changed). Then I could share the great flavors I taste in superhots with other people.
 
Edit: I don't think BT genes and roundup ready plants are a good idea for consumption or the environment (only important to me because it's important to humans). There would have to be some serious studies on how it affects humans and the environment before I think it's OK. The other problem we have is with IP laws on crops of this nature. I'm not OK with people owning genes, and I don't care how hard they worked. I don't see why we cannot take crop loss for being on the safe side. We should test the GMO plants and just use traditional breeding and avoid monocropping. As it is now, I'm completely against this practice.

 
How about inducing polyploidy with a chemical agent? Is that GMO? Even if you just produce a plant with double the normal genome? 
 
I see exactly the point you are making using Wheat as an example and it is a very valid point. I`m just not convinced that specific example is valid.
 
Because the USA sells wheat worldwide, the market for GMO wheat is limited. Look what happened recently with Japan banning USA wheat when the Monsanto GMO wheat was found. While GMO wheat is available, it hasn`t found a wide audience, unlike GMO corn or soy. As a sufferer of Celiac`s disease myself, I know I`ve had the symptoms all my life, yet I was only diagnosed about 5 years ago. 
 
I`m dead set against GMO crops because the research on long term safety just isn`t there, not because they are inherently bad. I also believe that we, as people, should be able to choose what we eat. It disgusts me that in the USA there is ne requirement for labeling food as containing GMO. Of course, I grew up in Europe, where GMO labelling was required from the word go. People, in general, chose not to eat it, so it is no longer in the food chain. 
 
Again, I agree 100% about patents on genes. I`ve been saying that since I saw the first patents awarded in the early 1990`s.