MANZANO PEPPERS! Please provide input!

Good day, 
 
It's mine first time posting here on the forum. This is also my first time growing Manzanos.
GOAL
To gain insight from other Manzano pepper growers and learn how to better cultivate this species.
 
WHAT THIS IS
This is my first time growing Manzano peppers. This is a manzano project grown on our family's commercial pepper ranch (we call farms ranches, here in SoCal).
 
This log is a place for me to put down photos and technical data and for YOU to share your photos and data so we can grow better peppers!
 
THIS IS A CASUAL GROW LOG. I don't have the time to make it super formal and scientific.
 
Let's start some good dialogue on our experiences. I will try to answer any questions as best I can, but I may be a little slow in my response time.
 
WHAT THIS IS NOT
This is not a formal grow log. This is not a complete documentation of my grow. This is not a hobby garden. 
 
PICTURES TO FOLLOW...

 

[Devv]

I live in South Texas, and I attempt to grow them here, which is a real challenge. I have a few Red Manzano plants I hope produce this winter here. They don't like our heat, but excel during the cooler months. I can't ever put them in full sun here until after October. From what I understand they are a high altitude, cool climate pepper. The Northern growers seem to do really well with them.
 
Good luck!

 

[hogleg]

Cool, I grow Manzano/Rocoto up in Sonoma. Look forward to watching your glog.
 
Welcome to THP from your neighbor up north 

 

[socalpepperfarm]

Good to hear form a few growers already. Awesome. 
 
LOCATION: I am in Southern California Ventura County area and we have pretty consistant temperatures throughout the year. We have had a couple hot spells in the last few months, 80-85, with an occasional 90 degrees. It has been hotter toward the back half of the afternoon this year down here. Temps have been averaging 70-5 degrees. It has been some really nice growing weather.
 
THE GROW:
This grow is a trial to compare soil grown green and red bell peppers with the same varieties grown in pots in the semi-hydroponic media coconut coir. The pot size is 11 L. The system is on drip irrigation with automated irrigation and fertility injection. The timer runs irrigation 8-10 times per/day with fertility. The fertilizers are in stock concentrate tanks injected with dosatrons at ratios 1:200 - 1:128. There are two stock tanks to separate non-compatibile fertilizers making it an A + B program. I also run sea kelps/plant hormones with micro organisms through a third dosatron.
THE MANZANOS:
I reduced the number of plants in the trial so I through in some manzanos for kicks. I think they are orange or yellow, I'm not sure! 
 
I will put dates on all the photos for reference. I will also put days post transplant below the plant photos; it will look like PT-13, meaning 13 days post transplant.
 
Here are the photos , with some captions. 
 

JUNE 18 2016 setting up the manzano area and filling/flushing the coir. It has an initial high Na content so it needs to be flushed to a lower salt concentration before you can plant in it. 
 

JUNE 22 2016 Transplant day. The transplants came in a little lanky, but all in all they looked really nice.
 

JULY 16 2016  PT-24
 

AUG 13 2016 PT- 52  AN OVERVIEW: a shot of the total grow out and a more close up of the manzanos. You can see them in the back upper left in the first photo

 

[socalpepperfarm]

AUGUST 26 2016  PT-65 I was unable to make it out the field for 7 days and this is what I find to my surprise when I return; Iron deficiency. My dosing mechanism for the fertilizer became plugged and so the plants where on no acidified water for 7 days at a Ph of 7.8 at this alkalinity my DTPA iron that was still in the pots was not highly available. In addition to having the pots leached of fertility with clear water for 7 days, iron is usually one of the first symptoms to appear due to its great need in the photosynthesis process. 
 
I am also dealing with quite a bit of blossom drop due to such a heavy flower load .... more photos to come. I upped my phosphorous from 55 ppm to 78 to help the flowers set and injected some additional iron to help recovery. We will see how they recover.

 

[Guatemalan Insanity Pepper]

hello and from a northern 'Pube'-lover and grower 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

GIP

 

[Thegreenchilemonster]

That is an epic Pubescens grow op! I grow several Pubescens varieties in Northern Virginia with success, but not on your scale, of course. I'm looking forward to seeing your updates on this project.

 

[socalpepperfarm]

That is an epic Pubescens grow op! I grow several Pubescens varieties in Northern Virginia with success, but not on your scale, of course. I'm looking forward to seeing your updates on this project.

Nice peppers on your 2016 glog! You have quite the pepper collection; that's awesome! Do you save seeds?

 

[Thegreenchilemonster]

Nice peppers on your 2016 glog! You have quite the pepper collection; that's awesome! Do you save seeds?

Thanks! Yes, I save seeds. I put out my peppers so that no like species are overlapping each other, to keep crossing to a minimum. I also use rocoto plants as barriers in between my other plants, since they can't cross with any of the other peppers species.

 

[socalpepperfarm]

Here are some other hot peppers I have in the same system. I'm actually not sure what they are, maybe someone could help identify. I need to look through my seed orders to narrow the search down to a selection.

August 29 2016 PT-68 
 
 

August 29 2016 PT-68 
The Manzanos seem to be growing out of their iron deficiency. Time will heal the plants with the fertility going strong. I am tracking an individual meristem to note the changes. Another 10 days and we shall see what comes of the plants.
 

August 29 2016 PT-68

 

[Devv]

Just amazing! And a ton of work there!

 

[socalpepperfarm]

Some overview shots with a close up of some nice pods on some other hot peppers.  They could be ghost peppers? I am not sure... I lost 11 red bells due to heavy fruit load and a trellising collapse.

September 2 2016 PT-72  
 
Below are some more photos from September 8th.
 

September 8th PT-78
 
I have gotten some first orange fruits. It's awesome. I will post pictures when I can.
 
Well come to find out I was wrong about the iron deficiency. After corrections were made for iron uptake, the problem persisted. But as you can see above, the chlorosis is fixed. It was due to a manganese deficiency. Iron and manganese deficiencies are almost indistinguishable without a leaf sample, and I incorrectly assumed it was iron. Interestingly, the bell peppers showed no problems what so ever, but both the manzanos and mystery hot peppers showed the chlorosis.
 
I was making Mn, Zn, Cu injections every 5 days. I then decided to stretch the time between injections to 8-10 days and I began to see these symptoms on the week of August 26th after not being out to check on the plants for 7 days. Little did I realize it was not iron, but from stretching my minor injections our a few more days than usual. 
 
Below is the photo from August 26th. 13 days later on September 8th, the plants are almost fully recovered from resuming 5 day injections on September 1st. 

Till next time...

 

[socalpepperfarm]

 
some shots of the grow and fruit. Much more fruit ripening on plants
September 14th PT-84

 

[socalpepperfarm]

I was working in up the coast at a blueberry field yesterday and I came across these 2-4 year old overwintered manzano peppers.