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P. Dreadie Memorial Group Grow 2016

Long-time THP veterans mourned the loss last August of Amarillo, Texas musician/songwriter/silversmith/chilehead Erin Mason, known to us here on the boards as P. Dreadie. Erin was an enigma, one of the most interesting and creative, yet gentle and loving guys I ever knew. Many of us may be unaware that he played harmonica in one of the original Austin, Texas bands of the early 1970s "Cosmic Cowboy" era, Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys. When Erin decided to step off of Alvin's perpetually-touring bus and return to Amarillo, he travelled to Jamaica, fell in love with the Reggae beat, collected the best Scotch Bonnet fruit he could find, and his alter-ego Papa Dreadie was born.

In 2013 Erin sent me a few pods of the Scotch Bonnets he had been breeding, carefully selected descendants of the original fruit he brought back from the Caribbean all those years ago. I harvested every single seed from those pods, and stored them away, as I focused increasing attention on other varieties. When his wife Liz gave us the news last August that Erin had passed, I knew what I had to do with those seeds: a community grow in his memory. I have already shared about half of them, and I will continue to share them with experienced growers of the Scotch Bonnet until they are gone.

Papa Dreadie Scotch Bonnet Select, grown by Erin in 2013:

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Lifetime memories posted by Liz Mason on Erin's FB page. Liz is an extremely talented professional photographer:

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The legendary bus:

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Thegreenchilemonster said:
Congrats on the P. Dreadies Bicycle808! Here is a crappy late evening shot of my P. Dreadie plant. The pods are ripening much more orangish this Fall, instead of the yellow that I got in the higher Summer temos. It looks like I'll have a few more pods to munch on from this plant, this season.
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All of my Dreadie/Mahalas ripened an orange-yellow. All year. I assume it's the cross, but is there an environmental effect on color?
 
Great video, Gary! Question: How do you get your Bonnet plants so tall?! Every Bonnet I've ever grown has been much shorter with same same bushy canopy. Do you purposely try to grow them "leggy" in the beginning of the season, so they're taller later on, or is that typically how the Dreadie grows?
 
MikeUSMC said:
Great video, Gary! Question: How do you get your Bonnet plants so tall?! Every Bonnet I've ever grown has been much shorter with same same bushy canopy. Do you purposely try to grow them "leggy" in the beginning of the season, so they're taller later on, or is that typically how the Dreadie grows?
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Thanks Mike! The Papa Dreadie seems to just grow tall naturally. These plants are actually a bit shorter than my last year's Dreadies, which were in a shadier part of the yard...
 
The only thing I'm doing differently this year, besides planting out too late, is to keep the "sucker" branches clipped off (everything below the first fork), in the style of many of the European growers. It seems to force more of the plants' energy to the crown, thus creating a thicker canopy and more fruit set. I don't think that pruning has had much effect on the plants' height, though, as these plants are actually shorter than my last year's plants, which weren't pruned at all...
 
Beautiful pods.  I can see this pepper in one of my ground meat/potato recipe.  I didn't get any seeds when Gary was giving awaylast year.  I was too late posting.   Would it be possible now to grow for next year?  LMK  I have freshly harvested Texas Bird Pepper seed that I purchased from Monticello last year.  Let me know if anyone has seed.   Thanks
 
 
Linda
 
Hay Gary, I saved every single seed from those Dreadies, they weren't by chance open pollinated next to, say, a fatali or some such? I'd like to try again next year with these, hoping for a pure strain.
 
BTW, the Dreadie/Mahalas are one of the most successful plants I had this year. Every single pod ripened on the vine! I'm freezing them for posterity, and recipes down the line.
 
I didn´t get a ton of Dreadie pods this year, but I´m really glad to have grown them.  Really nice tasting Bonnets, but i get a bit more annuum notes in the flavor profile than i did from most of the other Yellow Scotch Bonnets I have sampled. (Exception:  MOAs.  Dem tings are incredibly grassy, imo.)  I really enjoyed the Dreadies, though... and i love the fairly thick pod walls.  These are physically solid Bonnets.
 
I clicked on Ted´s pod review, and watched it. I couldn´t commit to the audio b/c my wife is close by and she´s have been pissed; she can´t stand Teddy B.  So, i didn´t hear his purported backstory, but the official version is all over THP; if memory serves, it´s at the beginning of this thread.  Erin was a member here; digging through his old posts is always fun and informative, especially in regards to this particular chile, music, and SBs in general.  As to the pod in the review above, well, yeah... that pod looks different from the Dreadies i grew, and the ones i got in an SFRB last year, and most of the pics i´ve seen on THP.  What i will say, however, is that I have noticed that my Bonnets kinda get flabby/slouchy... the ¨waistline¨ drops and you get a longer pod without the signature cup´n´saucer shape.  Off-pheno pods seem to be common in most SBs; i think Ted might´ve done better to pick one  with a more standard shape.
 
HTH; i´m just a neophyte with this stuff and hopefully one of the Dreadie experts will chime in soon.  I´ve just been semi-obsessed with Bonnets for a while, and i love shootin´ the shit about them.   
 
Thegreenchilemonster said:
Sorry to link a vid from that guy, but I had a few questions here.

Is this back story correct? Is that the way the P. Dreadie scotch bonnet pheno is suposed to look?

That pod looks completely different to what I grew, and what I thought the pods were supposed to look like.
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The back story has some truth however, when I wrote to Erin he wrote back #20 and explained in detail how the P. Dreadie came about

So simply there are two distinct Pheno's "standard" and "Select" ... we all strive to grow that perfect select shaped pod but I have found that growers in the States win over hands down because here in the U.K. We don't get the heat and humidity. Yes it's a nice large pod but to me it's more standard than select

On a plant I may only get a very small percentage which I could truthfully say were select ... as for HE saying Mr Duffy is the only one with select seeds ... I suggest HE reads this thread
 
Um, that looks uncannily like the pods I got this year...
 
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Gary suggested they are a cross of PDreadie Select and Bonda Mahala, which grew next to each other in his garden. I gotta say that aroma between mine and the Dreadies that Gary sent was exactly the same, only mine was overwhelmingly stronger.
 
The heat and flavor weren't different either, though I didn't eat them at the same sitting, so that would be a memory-charged anecdotal conclusion...
 
Thegreenchilemonster said:
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Wow, Ted actually got most of that right...As for the shape of the pod, that one is not all that unusual for Papa Dreadie. One normally sends ideally-shaped pods when they are for a video review, but I can tell you that Jim Duffy is trying to make a point here about pod shape expectations, as that is a running theme of his of late...I kind of agree with him on that point, as I think we sometimes get way too focused on pod shape at the expense of other more important characteristics...
 
I think on the whole it was a real good review of Erin's wonderful variety...
 
stettoman said:
Um, that looks uncannily like the pods I got this year...
 
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Gary suggested they are a cross of PDreadie Select and Bonda Mahala, which grew next to each other in his garden. I gotta say that aroma between mine and the Dreadies that Gary sent was exactly the same, only mine was overwhelmingly stronger.
 
The heat and flavor weren't different either, though I didn't eat them at the same sitting, so that would be a memory-charged anecdotal conclusion...
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Those look great Eric! So they really look like Mahala peppers, but you say they taste like Papa Dreadie? Wow!
 
windchicken said:
 
Those look great Eric! So they really look like Mahala peppers, but you say they taste like Papa Dreadie? Wow!
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I'll be sending you samples, Gary. I would trust your developed palate far more than my simple "like/no like" tongue. I have no issues with you making a liar out of me....
 
stettoman said:
I'll be sending you samples, Gary. I would trust your developed palate far more than my simple "like/no like" tongue. I have no issues with you making a liar out of me....
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Eric!!! My wife tells me I burned out my palate years ago with all the super hots...We chile heads all know that's not how it works, but I'm not so sure how well I can taste either....Nonetheless, I would love to try one of those!
 
I can't remember if I've ever sent you true Bonda Mahala fruit, but I may be able to scrounge up a few presentable pods to send you, if you're interested...
 
Gary 
 
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