breeding-crossing Superhot cross of carolina reaper and jalapenos.

[idlehumor]

Hello, I'm new to the forums here. I wanted to bring up a cross I came upon when growing carolina reapers and jalapenos in a community garden. I've been told that jalapeno crosses are very rare and seeds of a resulting cross don't tend to produce fruit. I guess I proved that wrong? The F1 pod I saved the seeds for were super hot with a knotty outside flesh of a reaper, but elongated shape of a jalapeno. The pepper flesh was on the thin side like that of a ghost pepper, and about as hot as a ghost pepper, but tasted almost exactly like a jalapeno.

With the idea that these crosses are rare, I saved the seeds and planted an F2 bunch of seedlings in my closet for the winter in small pots AND THEY GREW. I separated 1 of them and self pollinated it and then let the other 4 all cross pollinate each other freely. the self pollinated one, AKA Grouchy, flowered and grew pods the quickest. Grouchy grew larger pods of the same shape as the F1 cross, but it was MUCH hotter (comparable to a reaper). Grouchy pods had VERY thin knotty flesh with oozing capsaicin on the inside walls of the pod. Oddly though, the flesh of a Grouchy pod had a bit of a savory flavor and almost tomato like, but nothing like jalapenos. Grouchy pods also had NO spice for at least 10 seconds, and then BOOM immediate hit of heat to the back of the throat that lasted for a good 15-30 minutes.

2 of the other F2 crosses never grew flowers which I thought was odd, and then the other 2 F2 crosses left grew two different pods, I'll call them Vincent and Julius.

Vincent grew runt pods that were the size of a grape. Vincent's pods took FOREVER to polinate and took even longer to ripen, but also superhot with a floral flavor similar to reaper. Vincent, least attractive of the bunch, looked similar to the F1 cross, but was very similar heat level to the F1 cross, but had the flavor of a reaper.

Julius was similar to Grouchy, but grew the largest leaves, sprouted the quickest, grew tall very quickly, but the pods had very similar aspects to Grouchy's pods. The only real differences was the heat was even hotter with an immediate, longer lasting burn and a thicker flesh.

I don't really want to pay $60 bucks to get one of these tested for heat level, and also I want to find a stable hybrid before doing so anyway. I'm very new to cross breeding, but I've been gardening for quite a bit. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I will take pictures of the plants in my closet with some of the pods ripening and a cross section of one of Vincent's pods for demonstration.

with my thumb as a guide to size, the smallest is from Vincent, the bigger green one is from Julius and the orange bigger one is from Grouchy.

 

[HerbCasa]

Vincent sounds like a keeper.
I'm interested in the breeding project. They look hot AF.

What would you like for the next round of breeding?
Will you consider back cross to Jalapeno in the future?

Thanks for sharing, I will watching the grow

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

I don't think jalapeno crosses are rare, nor sterile. Maybe they were referring to crossing two different species (C. annuum and C. chinense), which is more difficult but still doable since they belong to the same clade.
To prevent cross pollination you always need to emasculate and isolate the flowers you pollinate. Then select for traits, 8 generations is a good goal for stability.
Sometimes plants differ from each other due to environmental issues, or because the starting seeds were not completely stable (open pollinated).
Good luck!

 

[idlehumor]

I don't think jalapeno crosses are rare, nor sterile. Maybe they were referring to crossing two different species (C. annuum and C. chinense), which is more difficult but still doable since they belong to the same clade.
To prevent cross pollination you always need to emasculate and isolate the flowers you pollinate. Then select for traits, 8 generations is a good goal for stability.
Sometimes plants differ from each other due to environmental issues, or because the starting seeds were not completely stable (open pollinated).
Good luck!

I didn't mention, but yes it is a cross between Capsicum Annuum Jalapenos and Capsicum Chinese Carolina Reaper peppers. I kind of wanted one round of open pollination to see what varieties I could get from the F1.

So after a plant has been self pollinated in isolation, are they not safe to mix in with other plants?

 

[idlehumor]

Vincent sounds like a keeper.
I'm interested in the breeding project. They look hot AF.

What would you like for the next round of breeding?
Will you consider back cross to Jalapeno in the future?

Thanks for sharing, I will watching the grow

I plan on back crossing the F3s from Vincent and Julius with an F1 plant. Thanks for responding and keeping an eye out

 

[CaneDog]

I didn't mention, but yes it is a cross between Capsicum Annuum Jalapenos and Capsicum Chinese Carolina Reaper peppers. I kind of wanted one round of open pollination to see what varieties I could get from the F1.

So after a plant has been self pollinated in isolation, are they not safe to mix in with other plants?

Yes, I mark the self-pollinated (or hybridized) pod(s) then stuff the plant in with the rest to do what it will. Just mark your controlled pollination pods well so you can still identify them come harvest!

 

[idlehumor]

Yes, I mark the self-pollinated (or hybridized) pod(s) then stuff the plant in with the rest to do what it will. Just mark your controlled pollination pods well so you can still identify them come harvest!

Thanks! Yes, I labeled them A thru E with A being the self-pollinated with bags pre labeled for those letters as F3 - A, F3 - B,... and so on. The pots have masking tape on them so I can reuse the pots for the next batch. I plan to plant these in a larger garden when the last frost comes and goes. That way I can start up an F3 batch in the closet and have Vincent and Julius to crossbreed with the new ones when they're ready to pollinate. I also decided to wait one more generation before back crossing with the F1 generation just to see if that iconic jalapeno flavor comes back without needing to germinate an F1 seed. Let me know if this is a good plan.

 

[Annuchin]

From which mother did the original crossed seeds come from, Reaper or Jalapeno?

 

[idlehumor]

From which mother did the original crossed seeds come from, Reaper or Jalapeno?

The mother of the crossed seeds was a reaper plant grown from reaper seeds sold by the pucker butt pepper company. I had first self pollinated a reaper plant and a jalapeno plant in isolation from each other. After the pods started growing, I put them in my garden plot 3ft from each other and planted three new reaper pepper plant sprouts (F1) in between the two. The three F1 plants all had very different cross outcomes. One of them grew crossed pods that had absolutely zero spice at all, looked like a large jalapeno, but tasted like a bell pepper. Another one had an elongated shape but the tip was blunted kind of like a reaper, the flesh walls were super thin and flat unlike anything I've seen, had a little bit of spice, but the floral taste was pungent. The last F1 was the one I chose to save as it tasted like a super-hot jalapeno which is what I was going for.

Update: I have more F1 seedlings sprouting and I plan to back-cross pollinate these with the existing Vincent and Julius plants. Wish me luck!

Also, if anyone has ever seen the movie "Twins" with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito, that's where I got those name from

 

[Annuchin]

I think the heritage of your crosses might be a bit more complicated than you think. In general, the crosses from chinense mother x annuum father are usually not viable, are dwarfed, or show a virus-like syndrome (the other direction actually works with low efficiency). And then, all F1 crosses from stable varieties should essentially look identical. Either the parents were not stable (i.e. already hybrids), there was no hybridization and you look at phenotypical variation in not so pure lines, or you were incredibly lucky...

 

[idlehumor]

I think the heritage of your crosses might be a bit more complicated than you think. In general, the crosses from chinense mother x annuum father are usually not viable, are dwarfed, or show a virus-like syndrome (the other direction actually works with low efficiency). And then, all F1 crosses from stable varieties should essentially look identical. Either the parents were not stable (i.e. already hybrids), there was no hybridization and you look at phenotypical variation in not so pure lines, or you were incredibly lucky...

From what I've researched, the Carolina Reaper seeds sold from that website are typically not from stable hybrids, so that tracks well. The Jalapeno seeds I chose was an organic heirloom Jalapeno M. Also, it's possible that a bell pepper pollinated one of the first crosses as there was a bell pepper plant growing about 20 feet away. The F1 cross I chose was undoubtedly a mother reaper and the pods tasted exactly like a fruity jalapeno pepper, but was a super hot. It really shocked me with how it had more of a jalapeno pepper flavor than the jalapeno pods from the father plant. Thanks for the feedback! I initially came here to find out if I had gotten lucky with the cross, but from what I'm hearing it's a mixed bag of feedback on that front.