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:

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

The legendary bus:

 

[JJJessee]

Both have some good nebari potential it appears. Wiring?

 

[MarcV]

Didn't do anything special to the plants. In fact I don't have the intention to create "real" bonsai plants, just want to keep them compact. I did keep the upper roots a bit above the soil level though

 

[PaulG]

Nice looking plants, Marc. Good luck with those.

 

[Downriver]

I grew both the G2 (2018) and G3 (2020) P. Dreadie Scotch Bonnets this year. Thanks for sharing the seeds with me @Sawyer . Special thanks to @windchicken has well.

Both plants produced well. I think the pheno of the G2 is a little more traditional, but the G3 wasn't bad either. Both plants generated some HUGE pods, as well as a few with mini stingers. Both conditions occurred more in the G2 than the G3.

G2 pods


G3 pods

 

[MarcV]

Papa Dreadie (center) is starting to look a bit better now
I also took my third scotch bonnet plant (Schneider Farms) inside. This was in fact my favorite variety and I couldn't leave it outside in the cold. I still need to re-pot it. It doesn't look very nice right now but I'm confident that it will look better in a couple of weeks.

All three plants are growing flower buds

 

[Trident chilli]

Papa Dreadie (center) is starting to look a bit better now
I also took my third scotch bonnet plant (Schneider Farms) inside. This was in fact my favorite variety and I couldn't leave it outside in the cold. I still need to re-pot it. It doesn't look very nice right now but I'm confident that it will look better in a couple of weeks.

All three plants are growing flower buds

Glad your still growing bonnets Marc …. P. Dreadie and Schneider awesome

 

[MarcV]

I grew both the G2 (2018) and G3 (2020) P. Dreadie Scotch Bonnets this year. Thanks for sharing the seeds with me @Sawyer . Special thanks to @windchicken has well.

Both plants produced well. I think the pheno of the G2 is a little more traditional, but the G3 wasn't bad either. Both plants generated some HUGE pods, as well as a few with mini stingers. Both conditions occurred more in the G2 than the G3.

G2 pods


G3 pods

Those are really beautiful pod!

 

[PaulG]

+1 @MarcV - really great consistency in that batch of pods.

 

[Downriver]

Those are really beautiful pod!

+1 @MarcV - really great consistency in that batch of pods.

Hey, thanks guys. I agree. These P. Dreadie seeds were legit.

 

[MarcV]

My Papa Dreadie sortof-bonchi is starting to flower again!
And yes, that's me in the reflection

 

[CaneDog]

Nice. Great looking little plant and a great shade of green.

Winter bonnets ahead!

 

[Sawyer]

Looks like some growers had good luck with the seeds I sent out last year, so I'm back with another offer. Using similar terminology to that used introduced in post 793, these are G3-21 seeds produced by the very same G2-19 plant that produced the last batch of G3 seeds.

These seeds have not been refrigerated, but were harvested just this past November, so should be viable. This is the only pod-producing plant I had last year, so I'm reasonably sure the seeds will grow true to type. Some of the early pods had prickles and/or stingers, but the later pods were more true to form.

Same general terms and conditions apply as last year; see post 793 for the details. I may still have refrigerated stock of G2-18 and G3-20 seeds. If anyone prefers those instead of or in addition to G3-21 seeds, ask and I'll check inventory.

I have 4 non-machinable domestic stamps up for grabs and five global stamps. The US-only stipulation of last year's offer doesn't apply for the first five non-US requests (where allowed by law). Beyond that, I have plenty of regular domestic stamps for sending seeds with a bubble wrap insert.

 

[MarcV]

I'm interested although the offer is not valid for me as I'm located outside the usa. The seeds that I have are from WHP I believe but I always prefer seeds with an origin as close to the original source as possible. In my opinion the pods of my papa dreadie plant did not have the true bonnet shape...

 

[Sawyer]

Read again, Marc. That was my first post since the website update and I clicked post before I was ready. PM me with your details if you want in on this.

 

[Wiriwiri]

Hey John...Happy New Year...hope it's better than the last 2
Suddenly I'm into Bonnets...I'd love to partake in your offer...but I must send you something in return.How about
some TFM SB...or whatever I have & others too??? LMK.
Thanks...Sandy

 

[MarcV]

Read again, Marc. That was my first post since the website update and I clicked post before I was ready. PM me with your details if you want in on this.

Oops yes indeed I was too fast... as usual...

 

[MarcV]

Hey John...Happy New Year...hope it's better than the last 2
Suddenly I'm into Bonnets...I'd love to partake in your offer...but I must send you something in return.How about
some TFM SB...or whatever I have & others too??? LMK.
Thanks...Sandy

I''m starting to believe that scotch bonnets are a virus also

 

[Wiriwiri]

I''m starting to believe that scotch bonnets are a virus also

Yeah right...hope it's not a super spreader...if you know what I mean.

 

[Sawyer]

Hey John...Happy New Year...hope it's better than the last 2
Suddenly I'm into Bonnets...I'd love to partake in your offer...but I must send you something in return.How about
some TFM SB...or whatever I have & others too??? LMK.
Thanks...Sandy

Hi Sandy, sure thing, just pm (or is it dm?) your details. Do you have a list of what you have to trade in your profile? I'm finding the site update difficult to navigate until I get used to it.

 

[Sawyer]

Two stamps each, global and domestic, remain for seed requests as noted above in post #892. Bad lighting here, but this is the G2-19 plant the seeds are harvested from:

Germinated in '19, this is its third winter. I may have not posted a picture of it before, but this plant was originally grown on top of a spike deer skull, with the roots wrapping around and through the skull and down into the soil below. It looked cool, but the plant really struggled to start growing this spring, so I repotted it, removing the skull and resetting the plant up to the usual crown. That, and/or the turmeric companion plantings, were enough to kick start growth. (The dead plant material on either side of the pepper plant locates the dormant turmeric plants.) The plant had a lot more leaves when I brought it in for the winter, but almost to the day of bringing it in, rodents started stripping it. I think I've trapped and poisoned those villains into submission, at least there hasn't been any additional damage in the last few weeks.

This plant is grown from seeds from a pod like the one in post #814, possibly that very pod.

Apologies to those who've already placed their request for not getting the seeds in the mail already. I had a batch of carbon nanofoam to produce and get ready for the mail, too. Everything, including any new requests received this weekend, will go out in the mail Monday or Tuesday.