Beautiful pheno & very unique Jeff!
One thing I'm not is an expert but I try to learn everything I can when situations like this come up so I started with "back crossing" as I don't remember this being discussed before.>
Introduction to Backcross Breeding In reading through it I think this breeding method is to introduce a wanted gene into a plant without it. Will back crossing a wanted gene into a plant that already has it work or help stabilize that gene? Dunno.... Anyone have insight?
Of course growing out to stabilize a trait is often discussed and my fall-back treatise is one on peppers relative, the tomato.>
Tomato Gene Basics The chart from
mrgrowguy is in this information packed crossing guide and you'll note just above it on page 2 is the progression from F1 through F8 where the percentage of plants that will grow the trait crosses to 99% and not much improvement happens after that, hence F8 is generally considered the cut point.
If you're serious about dedicating next season to this project I think you need to consider that the current plant is F1 and the plants from these seeds will only produce 50% of the pheno your looking for. Of course you won't know which plants are going to produce the wanted trait so that's a lot of isolation to get a batch of seeds that potentially have a 25% chance. I'm not trying to discourage you, just wanted you to know the amount of dedication needed is what usually discourages others. As mrgrowguy posted, "
Selection is key. The more plants you grow out, the more you'll have to select from. Keep selecting the same trait over and over again through each generation.".
Last is the cloning suggestions, if you want a large quantity of pods next season this is the best way to produce the pheno, but of course this is still a F1 plant with no progress in isolating the trait.
Whatever you choose to do, GOOD LUCK! and keep us posted.
`