chinense Madame Jeanette Pod Types and Variability

thoroughburro

thoroughburro

I have seeds for Madame Jeanette from Semillas La Palma (SLP), but in doing further research on the variety I found a different pod type to be prevalent under this name.

I opted not to grow it this year, as SLP’s photos show a highly variable pod size that looks like it’d be hard to get into a rhythm on when processing:

1642166248895.jpeg

1642166268489.jpeg

Photos by Peter Merle, of Semillas La Palma

This pod type under this name seems unique to SLP… at least, the other listings and photos I’ve found all show longer, narrower, less blocky pods and less size variability.

Is anyone familiar with the Madame Jeanette from SLP? Or, do folks familiar with Madame Jeanette in general recognize this phenotype?
 
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You are right; there is several shapes floating aroung for this strain. Some are longer/narrower, others more blocky while others look almost like the Malaysian Goronong! I'm curious to know what would be considered as the "correct" shape🤔
 
There is a tendency in the hobbyist growing community to take the general names of broad types of peppers and ascribe them to the more specific characteristics of the single seedline collected, grown out, and spread in the community.

Basically, hobbyists ask locals what such and such pepper at the market is and take the answer as specific. But how many locals or even vendors at a US farmer’s market would answer a similar question with more than, say, “it’s a jalapeño”? Very few will say “that’s a Biker Billy, a type of jalapeño” or whatever. So, we hobbyists wind up with a very specific, delicious “Bonda Ma Jacques”, while the original term “bondamanjak” is used as broadly generic for hot chinense.

I don’t know if that’s the situation with Madame Jeanette, though. It seems at the heart of a lot of terminology weirdness.
 
That’s the more common phenotype I was referring to! Thanks for tracking down an accession.

It’s weird, because I know Peter is an enthusiastic collector. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he collected his seedline personally from Suriname, in which case it might be every bit as much a Madame Jeanette as the more popular phenotype.
 
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It's the exact reason why I try to obtain seeds from a seed source as close as possible to, or from an original seed source.
I have grown Piment d'Espelette plants from seeds obtained from original espelette peppers for multiple seasons. The fruit grown from these often look very different from the pictures I find on the web sites of seed sellers.
If you start growing and reproducing plants away from the original gene pool, I think it is normal that, over time, they will start deviating from the original strain.
 
According to my sister in law who was born and raised in Suriname a mme jeanette has an elongated form and the adjuma a more blocky form. When i buy them at our local suri grocery store the mme jeanettes are elongated and don't have much flavour but terrible heat, while the adjuma's are full of flavour. When you cut in to them the whole house smells like fruit and orchids. When i look at seed descriptions on the web they all say that the mme jeanette is the fruity floral one and the adjuma plain hot. So for me it's not just the form of the pepper, but the aroma that tells me what it is.
 
Sulsa said:
According to my sister in law who was born and raised in Suriname a mme jeanette has an elongated form and the adjuma a more blocky form. When i buy them at our local suri grocery store the mme jeanettes are elongated and don't have much flavour but terrible heat, while the adjuma's are full of flavour. When you cut in to them the whole house smells like fruit and orchids. When i look at seed descriptions on the web they all say that the mme jeanette is the fruity floral one and the adjuma plain hot. So for me it's not just the form of the pepper, but the aroma that tells me what it is.
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🤔 that doesn't make it easier...
 
MarcV said:
🤔 that doesn't make it easier...
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Haha, i understand!
The correct pheno should be the one as depicted in ahayastani's post (top picture). That's what everyone i know of Surinam would agree on. In our "normal" supermarkets any yellow chinense is called mme jeanette, but in the Suriname shops they always have the correct pheno. I mentioned taste and aroma because that could also be a marker for determination. Last summer i ate two different types of SRP one was elongated and one was blocky but in the taste there was hardly any difference. This variation in pods comes from heterozygous genetics if pollination is done by separate father and motherplants. Recessive genes can easely pop up this way and cause these variations.

For what it's worth...grow them and taste them, you might like them! :)
 
thoroughburro said:
I have seeds for Madame Jeanette from Semillas La Palma (SLP), but in doing further research on the variety I found a different pod type to be prevalent under this name.

I opted not to grow it this year, as SLP’s photos show a highly variable pod size that looks like it’d be hard to get into a rhythm on when processing:

1642166248895.jpeg

1642166268489.jpeg

Photos by Peter Merle, of Semillas La Palma

This pod type under this name seems unique to SLP… at least, the other listings and photos I’ve found all show longer, narrower, less blocky pods and less size variability.

Is anyone familiar with the Madame Jeanette from SLP? Or, do folks familiar with Madame Jeanette in general recognize this phenotype?
Click to expand...

Most of those are parthenocarpic fruits with the styles still attatched. It is beyond me why a vendor would use a photo like that. It's possible that those are indeed Madame Jeanette but I think you made the proper decision not to grow those seeds out. That could be a diseased plant.

ahayastani said:
This is what Westlandpeppers cultivates/sells in the Netherlands (Suriname is a former Dutch colony):

Habanero-Lemon_Westlandpeppers-1-800x533.jpg


Lemon-habanero-Aioli_Westlandpeppers-800x533.jpg
Click to expand...

These look legit.
 
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