Rocoto peppers, anyone planted them?

[SadisticPeppers]

Yesterday evening, a buddy of mine I play D&D with gave me some Rocoto pepper seeds. I'd never heard of them before, and was wondering if anyone else has? The seeds are a black color, slightly larger than any of the C. Chiniese I've seen. According to a requisite Google search, the're C. pubescens, and are native to Mexico, Central and South America.

My buddy indicated the pepper bushes grow to a fairly significant size (he said his uncle, whom he got the seeds from, got the bush to grow 16 feet), and that would die in the summer if the temperature was too high. He also mentioned they were quite spicy, and a check on Wikipedia indicated quite a range of spiciness (50k-250k SHU)...

 

[Hendrix1326]

I grew a couple different C.Pubescens this year. One was called Rocoto Red, and the other was Manzano Orange. The Rocotos I grew were the size of small apples, about centimeter thick flesh and hard as rocks, and an almost donut shaped indentation on the bottoms. Very cool, similar flavor to bell peppers, but the burn was more like black pepper, and a little more intense than say a Cayenne. I'll attest to the size of the plants, as well. Mine were scarcely 6 inches tall well into June, and mind you, I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan! When I harvested them and cut the plant back to seek out hidden peppers, the plant was 4 1/2 feet tall, with a stalk about 3/5 inch in diameter at the base! The Manzano was even hotter, I'd put it about 80-90,000 Scovilles, and was a little more bitter flavored, but still good flavor and thick walled. Those were 3 lobed, very smooth, and about the size of a decent-sized plum. Plant was about 2 1/2 feet tall, though it had suffered poor nutrients at my mom's garden, and never quite fully recovered. Both have dark brown-black seeds, and the Manzano in particular had very fuzzy leaves. Oh yeah, and both had purple flowers, too, very pretty looking when in bloom .

 

[gasificada]

I'd never heard of them before, and was wondering if anyone else has?

You are asking this to a bunch of pepperheads??

Although maybe not as widely known as the other four domesticated pepper species, C. pubescens is still widely known.

...and that would die in the summer if the temperature was too high.

I can confirm this... several times (well, at least some pube varieties).

Although, the one I am growing this season seems to be quite tolerant of the heat and is bangin' ATM despite our intense sun and heat here. I'm even being foolish enough to leave it out in direct sun despite past experiences, and so far it hasn't had a problem with it.

 

[SadisticPeppers]

Cool beans, thanks for the info

I'm slightly hesitant to do a DWC with them, only because of the size, which will require a pretty significant amount of pruning after a while, but I'm keeping the seeds for a while, on the chance that somewhere down the road, I'll maybe get a house

 

[dragon49]

I had a bad experience with a rocoto a few seasons ago:

It was low, but very wide and took up a lot of space in my garden. It produced a lot of very pretty purple flowers, but they all fell off and I did not get any pods. This was the first and last time I will grow a rocoto. Never again!

 

[Hendrix1326]

I had a bad experience with a rocoto a few seasons ago:

It was low, but very wide and took up a lot of space in my garden. It produced a lot of very pretty purple flowers, but they all fell off and I did not get any pods. This was the first and last time I will grow a rocoto. Never again!

Bummer, I love C.Pubescens. I'd recommend trying them again. They prefer a slightly cooler climate, and are good with medium frequency watering. I got a lot of huge pods on my Rocoto this year, and even though they didn't ripen, I'm going to grow them again in years to come with the knowledge I've gained this year on their growth habits and idiosyncrasies.

 

[Lando]

They are great peppers, easy to grow(at least for me) and fantastic taste. Think I might grow only pubes next year as I already have a big freezer full of superhots

 

[geeme]

Pubs seem difficult for some areas. I started a "pubescens research" thread (and unfortunately, was then out for several weeks with bronchitis, so haven't given it much attention) because of this difficulty. But as Lando says, it seems easy for other areas. I'm hoping to find out what makes the big diff, if we get enough people contributing.

Last year was my first growing rocotos - one red and one yellow. Only one plant produced at all, and I think I got a maximum of 5 pods from it. I did overwinter them, however, and added one more rocoto plant, as well. This year they are producing many more pods than last year. I can tell you they bloomed wildly all summer, but dropped all of their flowers until the temps significantly cooled down, maybe 70F's during the day. We had some days around 98-99F, and they did not die. I haven't had any pods ripen yet, but expect to see that start happening over the next month.

I can see the possibility that maybe they are just low producers in their first year, and need to be overwintered before they'll produce more than a few pods. However, that's speaking only from my own experience - could be they produce fine for others in their first year.

 

[DocNrock]

I just sowed seeds for Red Rocotos along with the rest of my planned grow for 2013. We'll see how they do with a head-start. SocalChilehead seems to have had good luck with them, and he's only about an hour away from me.

 

[dragon49]

Very informative post by Geeme. I don't have the desire to spend any effort or resources to overwinter.

Are all rocotos as wide as the one in my pics? My garden space is not big and this took up far too much real estate.

 

[Lando]

the majority of mine grew upworth but I do have a couple that went sideways