pics Store-Bought Habanero Yielding Variegated Seedlings

[DesertDweller]

Last month I was checking out the selection of Habaneros at a local grocery store and picked up a couple of fruits which were expressing a specific phenotype that I liked.

I felt the phenotype was interesting due to the ridges along the top. The flavor of the pepper was typical of Habanero peppers, but with much milder heat. It's possible this fruit was the result of some kind of cross-breeding, intentional or not.

I saved the seeds from these fruits and found that at least one of the seedlings so far is kicking out variegated leaves. It's sitting in a Kratky hydro setup shown here.

 

[Bou]

Nurture this one well as you may have just found a hidden gem!

 

[MikeUSMC]

I am FAR from being an expert on this but, I’ve had seedlings start out exactly like this before, and it ended up being because I had my lights too close to them. Might not be the case here though. Just my $0.02

Either way, best of luck

 

[ABurningMouth]

Wow That doesn't look like any Habanero I've ever seen. Looks like a c.annum.

 

[ABurningMouth]

I'm saying that seed did not come from that orange pod. It doesn't even look like the same sub-species. My guess is it will have small purple white and green pods that turn to red, with green, white and purple stripes. Pretty awesome, but it's not the mild habanero you dissected. If so, I apologize. Sometimes seeds return

 

[ABurningMouth]

from the previous year to haunt again.

 

[DesertDweller]

I hear you BurningMouth. I'll let you know what it looks like when it's closer to fruiting.

The seeds from this fruit were germinated on sterile vermiculite (no other previous seeds) and there are multiple other seedlings that are also coming out variegated. I take care to label my seedlings and don't believe there was an error made here but lets see.

I can't find any reference to Habaneros ever being variegated, only annums like Jalapeno and Poblano, etc. So I'm with you there, I think I just need some time to grow these out and see what happened here.

I also grow Mattapenos, but there were no Mattapeno seedlings germinated at the same time as this pepper.

 

[MikeUSMC]

It looks pretty similar to a “Pumpkin Habanero” to me but, I could be wrong

 

[thoroughburro]

Nevermind.

 

[DesertDweller]

This is what the seedling looks like as of today. I'm leaning towards me somehow misidentifying this but I have no clue where in the process this error occurred, or if the error actually happened in the first place.

To me this looks like a "Mattapeno" or similar variegated annum, but I did not plant any of those at the same time. If the error occurred it must have been sometime during transplanting where it happened, like I categorically misidentified a batch and carried the mistake over.