seeds Seed saving for phenotype ?

[Englander]

Hi Guy's

Looking for a bit of advice from the gristled veteran peppers growers..............hopefully my question and your answers will help other newbies too seed saving and selection of pod's etc

My Example:

Basically I bought a packet Burmese Naga seed's from a UK website .....sowed a few got a few plant's ended up keeping two specimens.

Both grew well and vigorous looked identical......until the pod's formed plant 1 produced pod's near identical to each other I'd describe them and grooved and gnarly blunt tips and rounded narrow shoulders.

Plant 2 again very uniform pod's pretty much identical to each other but wide broad shoulders pretty straight nice bumpy skin less grooved then plant 1 but very pointed unlike plant 1

Would you say different phenotypes ? Or just abit different ?

I'm assuming I should simply keep seeds from the pod type and plant I like the most and want to replicate ?

My Burmese Naga pod's from plant 1 generally blunt tips

The pod's on plant 2 are much straighter wider square shoulder with a taper to a more defined point

I'd be very interested to hear your views thought's and advice.............

Stephen

 

[MarcV]

I'd say... don't focus on individual pods but on the plant that produces the desired pods. Of course you want seeds from healthy pods. That's what I would do...

 

[BlackFatalii]

What I do is mostly focus on saving seeds from the plant or plants that I consider to be the overall "best" ones. I consider the individual plant's productivity, growth habit, overall health and vigor, as well as the heat, flavor and phenotype of the pods. I take all of that into consideration when selecting which plants I want to be the mothers of the future generations. And if your selected plants have a few pods on them that are a less desirable phenotype, that is OK. You can also save the seeds from the "less desirable" looking pods on your selected plant, since the genes in the seeds are determined by the mother plant, and not by the looks of the individual pod that they came out of. In other words, the seeds from an imperfect pheno pod should be just as good genetically as the seeds from a perfect pheno pod that came from the same plant.

 

[SpainChillihead]

I am not an experienced grower, but I can tell you what I do, in case it gives you an idea.
If I plan to save seeds of some variety (I always do) I isolate 4-5 flowers with bags and thus avoid cross-pollination. When the isolated pods grow and mature, if the variety turned out to be correct (sometimes when you buy OP seeds surprises happen) and the taste like me, I take out all seeds and store.

Well, each bag contains a label with the name of the variety, the year of harvest and a 3-number code. Then, in an Excel I save all the information collected about that plant and its pods (flavor, heat, productivity, flowering, phenotype...). So, if in 2 years I want to grow a particularly productive red Moruga, for example, I try the "Moruga Red - 2020 - cod.102" seeds.

But, even doing this, I am not 100% sure that the plants I finally select will be as productive as their mother. For this, selective breeding will come into play for several generations using the criterion of productivity as the desired characteristic.

Having said that. If the only difference in your Nagas is the phenotype, I think you can save both seeds and in the next few years try to start a process of selecting the phenotype you like best.

I also totally think about is true the rest of the things the other guys say.