Polycotyledon

[danish]

So sorry it's been a while, I got a new computer with no card reader. Anyway, here are my findings. The polycot didn't produce buds until at least a full month after the dicot.
 
In terms of growth, the dicot had well regimented growth, reaching for light and making efficient use of leaves. The polycot on the other hand was just a big mess, a thick bush of leaves. Very attractive though. I cut the "sucker" leaves back from around the bottom of the plant to reveal the stem for photographs. As you can see, at an early age the plant began division result in a Y shaped meristem. This is typically what is to be expected due to the lack of apical dominance.
 
There are no more pictures of the dicot, it has served its' use as a control. The dicot is well into flower and is beginning to produce small peppers. The polycot has had immature buds for a number of weeks now but appears to be slow at maturing flowers.
 
In conclusion, thus far, I have noted the polycot is less efficient in growth and I think this is the reason it has taken longer to mature than the dicot. The next stage will be to see if it produces malformed flowers and whether it has difficulty setting pods. Enjoy the pics.
 
Last shot of the dicot:

 
Polycot as it began producing tiny flower buds, shot at same time as above for comparison:

 
Shot of Y stem:

 
Shot of polycot growth, minus lower leaves:

 
Shot of immature buds, camera not very good:

 
Again apologies for my poor photography. Hope this is of interest to some.

 

[KrakenPeppers]

I found it interesting .. Thanks

 

[Tick]

Update on the 2 Moruga siblings -
 
Quad on left:

 

[AJ Drew]

Have seen these in seedlings but never thought to follow the plant to see the difference.  Thank you for this thread.  Something new to look for.

 

[Tick]

Thanks aj!
 
Here's the normal (on left with a pod) and quad Moruga:

 
Both are underpotted at this point

 

[danish]

In conclusion:

At first the plant produced many leaves but they tended to shade each other leading to inefficient and slow growth. As the plant grew larger this became less of an issue as the leaves and stems spread out. However this definitely led to delayed flowering. The flowers produced were often dropped and approx. 20-30% had only 4 petals. The 4 petal flowers could have been the result of outside influence but if that were the case it was not observed. There were also the occasional 6 or 7 petal flowers but this is not uncommon in chinense plants. In total 26 pods were produced which is well under the yield of a dicot. The plants were grown outdoors all summer in the UK in a 70% peat compost. Ripening time and SHU were not affected.

It produced plenty of foliage from base to tip which actually proved an advantage against slugs which often just settled for the leaves at the base. It definitely produced a lower yield at a slower pace. I will be keeping this as an ornamental because of its' abundance of foliage and potential breeding opportunities. However, it may not be possible to breed the benefits from its' downfalls. I think I will be weeding these out in future.

Because my prior image host went bankrupt I am uploading the pictures of the tetracot from start to finish in this post and also uploading them in a compressed format to a separate file host. Again, apologies for my terrible photography.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
http://www.wizupload.com/6a5oubr6irky

 

[pepperomia]

Interesting that the observation of abnormal flower petals and poor fruit set in C. chinense is similar to polycot tomato where abnormal flower with missing floral parts are observed. I have a polycot C. frutescens (quad and abnormally rotated to one side) when i sowed my current batch of my Thekkady Kanthari. Polycots are rare as they are controlled by three recessive, non-allelic genes in Capsicum.

 

[Lovepeppers]

A couple years back I had a five cotydelons aji cito, initially mines grew slow but caught up to the other and fruited 3x the amount of my regular aji cito. I never got another mutant from those saved seeds. I will try again more this season, but is highly unlikely I will get those results again.

 

[pepperomia]

A couple years back I had a five cotydelons aji cito, initially mines grew slow but caught up to the other and fruited 3x the amount of my regular aji cito. I never got another mutant from those saved seeds. I will try again more this season, but is highly unlikely I will get those results again.

 

Oh wow, 5 cotyledon! Too bad none of the seeds gave you the polycot mutants back. I must remember to self the kanthari when it flowers to see if i can get polycots on the next generation. I guess being recessive non-allelic genes, it will be hard to get them in the right combo to express.