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seeds Saving seed from dried pods

So, I´d read on the interwebs (not on THP, i don´t think, but on other forums/messageboards) that the seeds in dried pods tend to be destroyed by the drying process, which i fully believed without any skepticism, b/c in those days, I knew very little about chiles, and assumed that everyone else knew EVERYthing about´m.  Then, I happened upon this thread by Peter Stanley, who is apparently one of these guys who DOES know almost everything about chiles:
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/61375-street-kitchen-peppers/
 
Well, that got me to thinking, which of course led to me experimenting, which in my experience is the quickest way to learn new shit. One of my jobs is at a cafe, where I go through buttloads of these cheap little dry red pods i get at the Pakistani-style market; I cannot tell if they´re Tien Tsins or Japones, I´m guessing the latter but who knows? Tien Tsin is the cooler name, and while I think i could easily tell one from the other if i had one of each, I really have no basis for comparison. The label just says ¨Chilli(sic) Whole¨... So, I been calling them Tien Tsin.... They´re red peppers, dried up and very cheap, and they have very little heat and arguably even less flavour.  I use them to make my Chile, Basil & Garlic Bagels (aka CBGBs) and the white women really like them.  
 
Anyway, I had kicked another plastic sack full of these ¨Tien Tsin¨ pods and was about to crack open another, and I noticed that the empty bag had a buttload of seeds that look just as good as the ones i buy from seed vendors.  So, I took´m home, wet up a paper towel, bagged´m up in a ziploc, and tossed it on top of the fridge. Result: 90%+ germ rate. I was enthused.
 
I made some bullshit beef chorizo out of some Guajillos a few weeks back. I´m calling it ¨bullshit¨ b/c i didn´t like use any casing and i didn´t hard-cure it or anything; I just whipped it up quick as a special for the cafe and for me to eat at home with eggs or on homemade pizza, but whatever.... it tasted delicious and i only let it cure for 24 hours.  The recipe called for Guajillos, which I love and they´re cheap and easily obtained, so I bought a sack of those at the mercado and had at it.  The recipe also suggested de-seeding the pods, which I did and of course i set a few aside and tried to germ them.  I got a pretty good germ-rate out of those, too.  Probably 80%?
Exz4y65.jpg

Blurry photo of Guajillo sprouts... note that there are a few duds, but most sprouted
 
So, the other day, a THP member named arrgh posted bout Pasillas and I brought up Puyas and I realized that I like Puyas and I wanna make beef chorizo out of those, and see if those seeds were viable, too.  This time, for the sake of discussion, i figured I´d document it in a post, with some low-quality pictures and such.
 
My thoughts on this are kinda like, I can buy a pound of dry pods for $4 and get hundreds of seeds for ¨free.¨ And, while I have no way of knowing this, I suspect that these peppers come from commercial farms, where vast fields of a single variety are grown.... I´m thinking that the likelihood of unintended cross-pollination in the midst of a massive Puya plot is pretty small?  And, even if i´m wrong, we are talking about free seeds that come in a big, cheap bag of pods.
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Big sac of Puyas.... 1 pound, hundreds of seeds.
 
Basically, Puyas can be described as turbo-Guajillos... same basic idea, but with more heat. At least, that´s how they tend to be regarded on the internet, but as i recall, there´s more to it than that.  Guajillos make me think of tobacco, whereas Puyas have a bit of a licorice vibe to them.  Other differences include size, color (to an extent, but both are pretty variable.  The Puyas tend more to dry brown with some reddishness, whereas the Guajillos dry to more red with some brownishness.)  
wLY2Ralg.jpg

Guajillo on the left; Puya on the right.
 
The first thing I noticed while examining the Puyas was, the seeds looked shittier than the Guajillos' did.  I´ve worked with a lot of dried pods; of course Chipotle seeds are beyond destroyed, and I´ve found that Anchos, Mulatos, and Pasilla Negras tend to have some pretty roached-lookin´ seeds in them.  The Puyas in this particular bag had some seeds that looked a little skanky. 
Gth3Xe1.jpg

Roachy Puya seeds on the left; viable Guajillo seeds in the blue dish on the right.
 
So, I dug around the bag a bit to find some more vibrant-looking Puya seeds.  I found a bunch, selected 10 of them, and gave´m the paper towel treatment to see how it goes.  I figure that, with ten, it´ll be really easy to calculate the germ rate, right?
7ww2AGA.jpg

Ten test-monkeys, ready to germinate..?
 
So, for the hand full of ppl who might have actually read this far, do you have any experiences, thoughts, or theories to starting seed from dry pods bought at the market?  Would you try it? I realize that none of these varieties i´m looking at are ¨rare¨ or ¨special,¨ but they can be hard to come by in fresh form, and you rarely see them offered on seed vendors´ lists.
 
I´ll be back to report on how these seeds did, in terms of germination.
 
Thanks for reading!
 
I suspect that the viability of seeds from dried pods might vary greatly, depending on how the pods were dried. Were they sun-dried, or smoked and/or dried in an oven? Or in other words, how much heat were they exposed to in the drying process? I once tried germinating a bunch of Tepin seeds from store-bought dried pods, didn't get a single sprout. But it's good to know that at least some of those dried pods seen in the store could have viable seeds inside.
 
BlackFatalii said:
I suspect that the viability of seeds from dried pods might vary greatly, depending on how the pods were dried. Were they sun-dried, or smoked and/or dried in an oven? Or in other words, how much heat were they exposed to in the drying process? I once tried germinating a bunch of Tepin seeds from store-bought dried pods, didn't get a single sprout. But it's good to know that at least some of those dried pods seen in the store could have viable seeds inside.
+1
 
BlackFatalii said:
I suspect that the viability of seeds from dried pods might vary greatly, depending on how the pods were dried. Were they sun-dried, or smoked and/or dried in an oven? Or in other words, how much heat were they exposed to in the drying process? I once tried germinating a bunch of Tepin seeds from store-bought dried pods, didn't get a single sprout. But it's good to know that at least some of those dried pods seen in the store could have viable seeds inside.
 
No doubt, that´s a huge factor.  I´ll no doubt try to start some seeds from Anchos and Pasillas, just to see what happens.  It has occurred to me that those are oven-dried, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?  I´m thinking that the peppers with the very thin walls do better when sun-dried, but hopefully someone well-acquainted with the industry will weigh-in.
 
It seems to me that Tepins would be great candidates for sun-drying, but it is also my understanding that they can be a real PITA to germinate, regardless of the source?
 
Muckyai said:
Absolutely.What are the most common uses for those varieties? I've already gotten the reputation as the pepper lady.
They're usually available dry. Tien Tsins are the Kung Pao pepper. Guajillos are in many different sauces in Mexican cuisine, including moles and the red sauce you get on enchiladas. Also chorizo. Puyas have similar uses but aren't as widely used, as far as I know. I'm amped to try them for "off-label" fresh uses. Like, in a salad or diced up in my eggs, see where it goes from there
 
Ive used packaged peppers (Facing heaven) and have not had any problems growing the seeds. I like to cut open the pepper and let it dry on the counter and then harvest the seeds.
 
All of my plants this year are from seeds I saved from peppers I dehydrated last year.  I don't know what the germination rate is because I stopped germinating them once I got a few sprouts.  I also used the Ziploc bag and damp paper towel method and put it on top of a florescent light fixture.  I only had two varieties that didn't germinate, Carolina reaper and another unidentified pod.  All of my pods were dehydrator with a food dehydrator, no idea how hot it got since it didn't have a temperature gauge.  I have since switched to a Nesco.
 
Update: after three weeks, four out of ten of the Puya seeds had germinated. So, yeah, forty percent at three weeks and I ditched the seeds/seedlings because forty percent is good enough for me. The other dry pods' seeds had far better rates in less time...
 
I was curious about this once and tried germinating some seeds from a shaker of pepper flakes I'd gotten from the store.
I think I finally got one seed to germ, but it took forever, so I found a ziplock with a paper towel full of seeds and a dried out seed with a taproot coming out.
 
BlackFatalii said:
I suspect that the viability of seeds from dried pods might vary greatly, depending on how the pods were dried. Were they sun-dried, or smoked and/or dried in an oven? Or in other words, how much heat were they exposed to in the drying process? I once tried germinating a bunch of Tepin seeds from store-bought dried pods, didn't get a single sprout. But it's good to know that at least some of those dried pods seen in the store could have viable seeds inside.
I agree, but wanted to add that Tepin are notoriously difficult to germinate even under optimal conditions. Nonetheless, I grew them back in '14 and dehydrated a bunch at 165 F.

Last year I found some of the 14 dried pods in my trunk that had been sitting there for two years, through cold northeast winters and hot summers.

Got two seeds out of eight to germinate. The plant that survived was among the biggest in my grow last year and produced well.

Moral of the story is, tepin is not the best barometer, but I did get them to pop under ridiculous circumstances - so it can be done.

Had more success with using seed from dried Kung pao pods a coworker brought from NYC Chinatown this year.
 
I once read that you wanna soak Tepins in a mild acid before trying to germinate them.  The idea was that they have a tougher outer shell so they can withstand being in a bird´s gut.  It sounded like BS to me, but by all accounts, Tepin seeds are supposedly among the hardest to germinate.  I´ll be giving it a go next season, though.... got some Tepin seeds from Windchicken.  Can´t wait to see how that goes... 
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