mjdiamond83's 2012 Grow Log

I'm trying to get a head start on the upcoming season. This is my first year growing superhots, so I'm hoping the early start will help me get some pods, despite having a pretty short season. I started one plant each of Trinidad Scorpion Yellow (first pic) and Trinidad Scorpion Red (right side of 2nd pic) at the end of October and aside from a minor (luckily) aphid attack on my TS Yellow, they're doing fairly well. I think I need to hit them with a little calmag soon though.

I planted a bunch of Chinense seeds on 1/10 and 1/11:
7 Pot Jonah (3)
7 Pot Red (4)
Yellow 7 Pot (2)
Yellow Trinidad Scorpion (2)
Trinidad Scorpion Morouga (3)
Madballz (3)
Bhut x Douglah (3)
Goronong (2)
Bhut Jolokia (3)
Chocolate Bhut Jolokia (3)
Dorset Naga (3)
Yellow Bhut (3)
Orange Bih Jolokia (2)
Fatalii (3)
Datil (3)
White Habanero (3)
Scotch Bonnet (3)
Aji Cachucha (3)
Chocolate Habanero (2)
Paper Lantern
Chocolate Cherry Chinense (2)

I also have 10 Bhut Jolokia Indian Carbon, 4 Cajamarca x Chocolate Bhut, 4 SB7J, and 4 Bonda Ma Jacques seeds germinating in paper towels in ziplocks on the pellet stove.

I was originally going to try and grow twice that many Hots/Superhots, but I finally sided with reason, and decided to cut back a bit. I'm starting a restaurant with my brother in May, so I'm going to grow more mild/medium peppers that will be more practical to make a sauce for the average patron.
Right now a lot of my grow box is being taken up by my first attempt at hydroponics and those two pepper plants. In another month or so when I have to start my other peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, tomatillos, etc., the hydro is going to get moved and the Chilly Chile and Scorpion are going to the bay windowsill.

 

[mjdiamond83]

Looking forward to following your log MJ. Best of luck to you.

Good luck with the biz... we rent to a cuban sandwich shop, I helped him build the original interior 20 years ago and ya can't fit a car in the lot. Keep it simple and be great at what ya do....

Looking good! Good luck with the plants, and the business!

Thanks Guys! Looking forward to following your grow logs too. SS: Thanks for the advice, we will be keeping it pretty simple. Everything will be from 3 cuts of meat (pork shoulder, chicken breast, and Ribeye or Sirloin) to help increase efficiency and keep waste to a minimum. I can see why your tenants are doing well, Cuban sandwiches are awesome!

 

[mjdiamond83]

The seeds are starting to pop. I've got about 16 seedlings up now. The Trinidad Scorpion Yellow that I started at the end of October and germinated on November 4th has its first buds on it. This is the first superhot I've grown, so I'm pretty excited to see some buds! I just got it potted up to a 3 gallon bag, so it should have plenty of room to grow over the next few months. The Chilly Chile from the grow challenge has some peppers on it and is absolutely loaded with flowers. It has some white crystalline stuff growing along the veins though. Its not aphids, and doesn't look like eggs, and its not on the bottom like most of the pics I've seen of Edema. Does anyone have any clue what it might be?

 

[PIC 1]

Resin........just kiddin.............The plant looks normal, Each variety can look slightly different especially when there's a flourish of new growth

Greg

 

[mjdiamond83]

It's been about 3 weeks since I started the seeds and 67 seedlings are up. If you take away the Tabasco that I started a little bit later, I'm at about a 70% germination rate; not great, but since the box spent about 10 days in the low to mid 60's and now is running in the low 70's, I'll take it. I'm looking at a plant out date of Mid to late May. These peppers should have some good growth to them by then. My Annuums and Baccatums are going to hit the grow box in about 2-3 weeks.

SB7J coming along nicely

 

[PIC 1]

That SB7J's looking sweet...........I'm curious to see the difference in the peppers that everyone ends up with

Greg

 

[mjdiamond83]

Me too. Your plants are WAY ahead of mine, so I'll be able to use your pics to gauge mine and see how homogenous the characteristics are. Did you have decent germination rates for them? After only 1 of the first 4 germinated I threw about 7 more in the ziplock and (so far) only one more of those has germinated.

 

[patrick]

Good to see a SB7J doing some growing. I'm thinking I may have picked the peppers a little early and the seeds weren't quite fully developed. Only thing I can think of. I went 1 for five the first round and am trying again with five more started yesterday. Going over the seeds I have left they look fine. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be. I also started a couple of the non-isolated SB7J seeds.

Thanks for posting the picture mj.

 

[mjdiamond83]

You're welcome Patrick. Maybe one of us will get lucky and have pods just like the ones the seeds came from. I'm going to isolate at least a few pods from each variety I grow using that pill capsule method, so as long as I get some pods this year I'll have some pure seed to spread around for the F3 generation.

 

[mjdiamond83]

I potted up 10 of the larger plants today and put the annuums and baccatums on top of the pellet stove to start them towards germination. Everything seems to be coming along pretty well aside from some leaf drop on my red trinidad scorpion due to sunburn after a foliar spray.

The Hybrids from left to right: Douglah x Bhut, Choc Bhut x Cajamarca, SB7J, and Choc Bhut x Cajamarca

Criolla De Cocina, 4" bell type peppers from Nicaragua that are supposed to have a much richer flavor than typical bells.

Trinidad Scorpion Red

A couple open pods on my Trinidad Scorpion (Red) plant.

The Chilly Chile from the fluorescent grow challenge has some pods that are starting to ripen

 

[Pulpiteer]

Oh yeah, the fluorescent grow challenge, I forgot to check back with that thread to see what those plants were. I'm glad you posted the picture here. That looks awesome! That's a lot of pods on that plant - all from fluorescent? Wow. Nice work.

 

[patrick]

Looking good Matt!

 

[mjdiamond83]

Pulpiteer: Yeah, it's all from fluoro lights. They seem to work real well for the wattage. That Chilly Chile plant has grown as large as that little pot (1.7L) will allow. I'm not going to pot it into a larger container, since its a waxy, non-hot pepper that I probably won't eat, and I don't really want to use the room for purely aesthetic things. It definitely produced a lot of pods being in such a small container though.

Patrick: Thanks. Glad to see on your glog that you eradicated those dang fungus gnats. I'm going to get some mosquito dunks and try and wipe out my gnat farm before I get my Annuums in the soil. I didn't have awful germination rates, but I'm sure I would have had a few more plants if they weren't munching on my seeds.

 

[patrick]

Good luck on getting rid of the nasty bastages. I wish I could take all the credit in mine being gone but I think I just got lucky and caught them real early in the game.

 

[Justaguy]

Kill the gnatssss!!!! Best of luck

 

[Justaguy]

Noticed you mentioned Pequin Chiapanas in PIC1's GLOG. Not sure if the same but I have Pequin Chiapas from seed I got from Chris-cmpman. I have extra sprouts. I can send you some if you have a 3-4inch deep cell/pot for them. They are long germinated in the dark. In my setup it works for me. Let me know if you want them and PM an addy(forgot to record it before) and I will get them to the post tonight.

 

[mjdiamond83]

That would be awesome. I've been wanting to try your piney hab extreme sauce. How about I buy a bottle of that and throw the extra sprouts in with them?

 

[mjdiamond83]

I couldn't find any mosquito dunks at Wally World even though the website said they were in stock, so I had to settle for some flypaper, until I get a chance to go to Lowe's and snag some dunks. I'm hoping that I can get rid of some of the gnats with the flypaper. I don't think they'll do much damage to the plants that are out of the 'newborn' stage, but they're still annoying.

I'm getting some chlorosis and brown spots of some of my plants, probably from the warm uncirculated air in the grow chamber, so over the past few days I've opened the 'front door' and turned a fan on low. I'm hoping that will help strengthen the stems in addition to keep fungus from growing. I also fed them with some chamomile tea, and purchased some Mycorrhizae to introduce to the soil.

Brian (Justaguy) was nice enough to send me some Pequin Chiapas seedlings, so I got those potted up and added to my ever growing nursery. Over the past week I've also started some annuum and baccatum seeds and have been transferring them to trays and pots as radicles have emerged. So far about 30 have germinated and been moved downstairs, away from the gnats, until they break the surface.

Here's some pics:

Can't wait for late summer/fall

Chilly Chile Ripening

Red Bhuts, Dorset Nagas, White Habaneros, and Datils

 

[romy6]

Love the deep green of your plants. You will have some nice harvest come late summer!

 

[mjdiamond83]

Thanks romy! This is my first year of growing much more than a row of cayenne peppers, so a solid harvest would be great and just keeping the majority of these things alive and disease free would make me happy.

 

[PaulG]

Looking especially good, mj! The little grow chamber is as good
as it gets! The pot ups look super healthy and rarin' to go!