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seeds PRF seed tray '09
- Thread starter Pepper Ridge Farm
- Start date
Nice looking plants.
How long does it take to transplant all of those plants? I just did 8 plants tonight and it took me over 1/2 hour.
How long does it take to transplant all of those plants? I just did 8 plants tonight and it took me over 1/2 hour.
Pepper-Guru
eXtreme
Pam said:
POTAWIE said:I don't think you can ensure purity, even by distance, although you can definitely increase your odds. I think complete isolation or isolation of flowers with glue or the tea-bag method is probably easier and more effective than planting a mile apart
I usually isolate plants indoors and in the greenhouses where there are no pollinating insects and very little chance of pollen transfer unless its done by myself, and I also "lend" some plants to a "neighbor" a few miles away for even more isolation.
POTAWIE said:
wordwiz said:
This whole seed isolation issue can be debated and re-debated all day, but in the end it is all about what "You" the grower, want out of your pepper growing experience. If you're the kind of person that couldn't care less and simply "believing" that your seeds are pure is good enough, then so be it - the truth is they probably aren't. I've been doing this a long time and have been crossing peppers for over 10 years; I can tell you that peppers cross quite readily and very easily and as Pam has stated already, some of the crosses may not be prevalent until the second or third generations, which may be years down the road for some of the growers here(if isolating peppers by a mile or more is alien then I'm talking about you). Don't get me wrong, as I've already said, sometimes I don't separate my patches but that just means I won't be rushing out to the mailbox to send everyone falsely claimed Fataliis that year. I can't speak for the rest of the growers here, but when I grow a Fatalii, I want it to be just that, nothing more - nothing less. I keep a stock of original genetics in seed form as well as mother plants and when I send/trade/sell seed, the recipient can rest assure that getting a Guru seed means they are getting the real deal. Pam, I've never done the bagging thing, but from the outside looking in, I can only fear limitations on light penetration, air exchange, and beneficial insect interaction. It sounds like something worth trying, if the material is right. What are you using? Do they make bags large enough for trees?
Guess what I'm really trying to say is: "Great looking seed tray PRF!"
Thanks Guru you make a lot of sense and I'll be more careful in the future. I'd like to learn the whole tea bag thing myself. I'd sure use it if I knew it made a difference. Carol I rechecked my pots the Fatalli are in they are 10 cm or about 4 inches across top. Sorry.
AlabamaJack
eXtreme
PRF...I hope you don't mind but I put this as my desktop image...its a great pic...
Yes, there are problems with bagging; the air circulation and the insect problems. For me, however, there isn't a satisfactory alternative for saving pure seed, so I deal. I don't have enough space to isolate more than one variety at a time.
I have used both tulle and mosquito netting (from the army/navy surplus), and I have isolated entire plants, branches, and just the blooms at one node. The mosquito netting is very fine and protects the flowers from accidental cross pollination, but it also gets the wettest when it rains. The tulle is usually synthetic and sheds water pretty quickly, but getting it as fine as the mosquito netting means blocking some of the sunlight.
When I have time, which I didn't last year, I usually take the netting off the branches (they're rubberbanded on) to air it for a few minutes and check for bad bugs. Once the blossoms I'm interested in set fruit, I take the bag off and mark them by tying ribbon around the node they're on.
One idea I'm toying with is to either buy one of these:http://www.gardeners.com/Pop-Up-Net...denPests_DeerRabbits,37-446RS,default,cp.html
or build something similar. I could just group the plants I wanted to save seed from together in the main garden, or make a few small 3 X 3 beds.
Does anyone know what kind of wire or whatever they use in these little pop up tents and things? I suspect it would be easier and cheaper to get some very small bore PVC and make my own version, but I figured someone here would know what that stuff is.
Pam said:
Pam I was actually considering all those things myself. I originally planned on building a frame that I could cover with some type of screen or netting. This was going to be for the 6'x6' bed I have. Then things got out of control and now I am going to have 27 varieties of peppers plus 4 herbs. I thought about bagging entire plants. I figured I could make a tulle condom and secure it under the lip of the pot. But then my concern was the same ones you had. Air circulation, lighting, etc. So...I think I am just going to go with bagging individual flower clusters. Even though I don't really have the room I also may try one extra pepper plant in a 2 gallon pot and bag the whole thing. Even if it only produces a few peppers, depending on the variety, it should be enough seeds to trade and keep. I had a friend last season who had a few pepper plants in 2 gallon pots due to the lack of space and they still produced.
How tight do you tie the bags on when you bag flowers?
Pam said:
They come in different colors and I assumed the white one would disturb the natural light the least. They worked fine as a seedling greenhouse.
If the plant is too large to fit in one you'll have to improvise somehow. Hey, I might try this myself this year. That and tea bags. There's some cool looking tea bags that came with some Lipton Black Pearl tea I bought. They're like little clear pyramids.
Pepper-Guru
eXtreme
caroltlw said:
Those ARE nice. Harney and Sons have their tea in silken sachets like that. If I just wanted to ensure genetics on a few pods that really would be a good idea though...
Guess putting em on before the flower opens and then removing them after the pepper starts growing is the key here...
Pepper-Guru said:
It is for me. Last summer I was so busy that I put the net paint strainers you can buy at big box stores over the end of a branch, rubber banded it down, and hoped for the best. Best didn't happen, all I did was provide protection for a bunch of tomato hornworms.
Serves me right for taking shortcuts, I suppose, but it was the best I could manage at the time.
I had one tomato hornworm last year and it destroyed a Japones plant in a couple of days early in the season. I thought it was deer nibbling on it until I spotted the little sucker (not really that little) hiding under a leaf. I figured the plant was a goner as almost all the leaves were gone, but it went on a growth spurt after that just making new leaves while my other Japones was making peppers. It eventually outgrew the non-damaged plant and made even more pods, just later in the season. Amazing. Pepper plants can be tough.