pod Now my "Black Aztec" are turning green.

[FinInGermany]

Got yet another one from my local hobby grower which I think may have been mis-identified . She had it labelled as "Azteco", which after some serious googling, I decided must be Black Aztec in English. I have already harvested and enjoyed quite a few of these, but I left the pods I had isolated for seed on the plant to make sure they are REALLY ripe before taking them off.

 

[FinInGermany]

Sorry, must have hit the wrong key there and posted half a question .

Came back today after having been away for a few days, and found that a couple of the pods are now turning green. Since they are still absolutely firm, I reckon they can't be over ripe, and are in fact still going through the ripening process. Does anyone know of peppers which start off black, and then either ripen to green, or maybe even through green into yet another colour?
If and when they change yet again, I'll post updated pics.

 

[CaneDog]

Yes. Absent a genetic mutation causing the pod to retain anthocyanin it will degenerate during ripening and the purple or black coloration will go away. So, some unripe pods stay purple/black through ripe and others will either turn green then to a ripe color or go directly to the ripe color, often depending on environmental conditions during ripening.

It's also possible that a pod can have a genetic mutation causing it to retain chlorophyll (as opposed to the typical process of chlorophyll degenerating during ripening), thus the pod will either stay green (if it would otherwise mature to a light color, e.g., white or yellow) or merge the retained chlorophyll green with the final ripe color (if the ripe color is dark enough to show through the green). An example of this would be a brown pepper, which has the chlorophyll retainer mutation and otherwise ripens to red (green + red = brown). So, a pepper with anthocyanin that didn't have the anthocyanin retain mutation but did have the chlorophyll retainer and would otherwise ripen to a pale yellow would turn from purple/black to green and ripen as green.

 

[Sulsa]

If i'm not mistaking Azteco peppers are supposed to ripen from black through brownisch green and end up red when fully ripe.

 

[Sulsa]

Yup found it! even in german language! Azteco pepper
Final color is brownish red!

 

[FinInGermany]

Yes. Absent a genetic mutation causing the pod to retain anthocyanin it will degenerate during ripening and the purple or black coloration will go away. So, some unripe pods stay purple/black through ripe and others will either turn green then to a ripe color or go directly to the ripe color, often depending on environmental conditions during ripening.

It's also possible that a pod can have a genetic mutation causing it to retain chlorophyll (as opposed to the typical process of chlorophyll degenerating during ripening), thus the pod will either stay green (if it would otherwise mature to a light color, e.g., white or yellow) or merge the retained chlorophyll green with the final ripe color (if the ripe color is dark enough to show through the green). An example of this would be a brown pepper, which has the chlorophyll retainer mutation and otherwise ripens to red (green + red = brown). So, a pepper with anthocyanin that didn't have the anthocyanin retain mutation but did have the chlorophyll retainer and would otherwise ripen to a pale yellow would turn from purple/black to green and ripen as green.

Thanks CD , I see I still have more to learn than I have time left on this planet . It's late evening now in Germany, and I had to spend quite a while tending to my plants after a long journey home, so I reckon I'll sleep on your reply and see if I can understand more of it in the morning, once my head's in a better shape .

 

[FinInGermany]

Yup found it! even in german language! Azteco pepper
Final color is brownish red!

Hey Sulsa, you are my hero . Well I reckon the mods can flag this one as "solved" once someone gets round to it. I wonder why that link didn't turn up when I tried googling "Azteco" a couple of months back . Maybe searching in German and having my VPN set to United Kingdom confused my computer .