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The Moruga Project

You may want to poke a few holes in your cups to allow the excess water to drain, those look like they're drowning.
 
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This is an accurate rendering of the backyard plan. The area is 44 feet across and 60 feet deep. There is a path shown in blue that leads to the rear of the property- where a parking space I never use is.

I plan to chop up the backyard with an axe, shovel and pitchfork and remove all the sod from the area. The approximate square footage is 40 X 60 = 2400 less 4 X 60 path- 240... net square footage is 2,160 square feet.

I am thinking about putting railroad ties down in the foreground of the pic and filling the back end with a few tons of topsoil. Railroad ties are cheap around these parts and topsoil is pretty abundant around here. I think I will work on some estimates.
 
Are you planning on leveling the ground with the ties or making raised beds with them? If you are planning on buying a load of soil you could always leave the land as it is and use the soil to create long mounds and grow the peppers in rows. Just my 2p's worth.

Also unused parking space would make a great nursery area for the starts if the neighbors don't mind and if it gets the sun it will trap the heat during the day. Easy to move pots around on.

Got a nice amount of space to play around with anyway mate

Pete
 
I wouldn't strip the sod, that is a waste of effort. Just spray Round up on it and rototill it in, you are going to have to rototill it anyway. The dead grass will provide nutrients as it decomposes.
 
DAY 39

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I didn't water the plants for one week from hearing I was over-watering. And they are leggy but will do fine when I repot them.

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This is one week of growth of the same plant, to scale:
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Didn't grow up, grew leaves. Also straightened up a little as a ajusted the lighting a bit. Small progress for a week. Didn't water them in a week and will tomorrow or the next day- the soil is still slightly moist in the middle.

Sawyer said:
Fill it with potted plants.
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Not a bad idea.

PjPEPPERS said:
Are you planning on leveling the ground with the ties or making raised beds with them? If you are planning on buying a load of soil you could always leave the land as it is and use the soil to create long mounds and grow the peppers in rows. Just my 2p's worth.

Also unused parking space would make a great nursery area for the starts if the neighbors don't mind and if it gets the sun it will trap the heat during the day. Easy to move pots around on.

Got a nice amount of space to play around with anyway mate

Pete
Click to expand...

I am leaning towards buckets again. First I won't have to destroy my entire lawn to do it. Second, to properly do the backyard is $600 in materials which is a lot- for $600 I can buy 100 buckets and a few tons of topsoil- $13.50 per ton here. I am more concerned because of the over-wintering and the inevitable destroying part of my crop... that's making me think of developing my own heirloom seed and grow/clone it to have my very own strain of DNA that I made- I think developing an heirloom crop for next year would be a fruitful pursuit- do you agree?
 
I guess it depends on what your objectives for growing peppers in the first place are. Is it just for fun/hobby or are you looking to make some $'s out of it?

Whatever your plans are, it is always fun to experiment and see what you can grow. One thing I would say though is if this is your first time growing peppers on quite a big scale then try not to plan to much because as a first time mistakes will always be made and I speak from experience there. I seem to change my plan every other day and until the first grow is under your belt it's hard to lay down too much of a set fast plan. So just have fun with what your doing really, there is no harm in trying out crosses. To get seed to heirloom stage I think it has to be isolated ad grown out for so many years though to be able to call it such. (But if it's for hobby only you can call them whatever you want lol)

I'm trying the bonchi method this year and maybe next year with the same plants if they survive and then will replant those seeds and go from there.

The good thing with pots are they are easily movable when/if needed. I have heard great things about the air pruning pots and if you can get the material yourself you can make massive pots. The bad side about pots are they need to be watered more than if in the ground. I personally don't mind watering the plants, gives me chance to connect with them and chance to see what little tasks need to be done.

So all depends on how much time and effort you can put into the grow really.
 
Watered the second batch of Morugas after 10 days with no water- the first gen plants are still moist after 10 days. Man was I over-watering!
 
Yep gotta be careful over watering them. It's better to let them go more on the dried out side than the soaking wet side. A good way to see how much water then need is to weight them. You can either bust out the kitchen scales or do what I do..pick em up with hands. Try judging the weight of one whilst it's wet and then let it dry out some and weight it again, if it feels light then give em a water.

The top of the soil will dry out before the middle or bottom so don't rely on how they look from the top, stick your pinky in the soil a bit to see if it's damp, if not give em a water. I try to regulate the water I give my plants, at the moment I water them every Thursday night with about one 3rd of a liter of distilled water that has liquid seaweed in it. As they get bigger I will increase the watering to a twice a week - Monday and Thursday nights. I also give mine a good spray every other night with the same liquid seaweed mix.

Also be careful over watering them because it will cause mold spores to build up effect the growth of the little seedlings.

What sort of Moruga's are you growing by the way? Are they different varieties?
 
If you're thinking about developing your own pepper strain you may want to plan on it taking more than one season. It's widely accepted in the growing world that you need at least eight generations to stabilize a pepper. Of course that's after you develop it the way you want it. Might take a few generations to get the right shape, a few more for the right color, a few more for the right texture. Then you have to work on the taste and the heat level. I suppose if you could grow 24/7, 365 days a year you could get it done in four or five years.

I applaud your attitude man I really do. Reality tends to get in the way of our get rich quick schemes.
 
DAY 44

PROGRESS REPORT

I have 25+ seeds that just popped in my 2 36 count boxes.
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The "no real leaves yet" shelf has 27 plants and 9 that haven't popped yet. USE THE PLANTERS IN THE ABOVE IMAGE TO GROW FROM SEED!!!
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On the left is a 10 box of sweet red bell peppers that are doing very well and all need to go into Coke bottles, just need to make sure they're labeled!

The "true leaf" section has 32 plants with little leaves:
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END REPORT

My neighbor offered me their planters- here's a pic:
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They're 29" X 14"- the row of 3 is 8 feet long. And there's 9 of them. I can use them in my backyard plan.

I am leaning towards developing my own moruga plant just like Butch T did. I will select one plant this fall and take all it's seeds and make next year's crop of all them, then take their seeds and so on... and clones of the master plant also etc...

This is year one- I am growing the master plant. Year two I grow all of that plant and third year only have that one DNA seed- that's my goal. Now "my own plant" is worth squat but I am sure that sooner or later it'll be readily available to get a Scoville test on your pepper, then I will have my own heirloom seed with a recorded SHU.

As far as the backyard itself, I am still shooting for 100 plants with half of them morugas. Since I have 84 plants on my hands at the moment, some of them won't make it to the backyard. One way to look at it is the best plants get picked for the crop. I can trade or sell my extras, I suppose... it wasn't until now that I realized the scope and context of what I am doing. I knew selling plants would be part of it but I am in it on a deeper level now!
 
Also wanted to point out my dining room window:
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Lots of room to grow. PS- the room was not dark when I took the pic, the incoming reflection of sunlight makes the room look dark.
 
If you don't have any other peppers besides morugas you won't have your own strain you will still have morugas unless you get a throwback on genetics. Heirloom means that a cultivar has been kept the same through centuries. The moruga blend was cultivated years ago but it would take a very very long time for it to be considered an heirloom and in some parts of the worId I heard some heirlooms are illegal to sell to make sure its not grown on a large scale
 
Created a new shelf and transplanted 10 sweet and 12 hot pepper plants.

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Here's my theory. Take one plant and clone it. Grow the clones, build up a lot of them from the clones. They will all be genetically identical.

Take from the plant a pepper and have it tested for an exact SHU measurement. When? Dosen't matter when... I am rolling the dice with one plant and it's unique DNA and hoping that years later it can be tested, then I'll have an exact SHU for the entire crop as they're all clones. Then I can call my plant an heirloom- maybe not by your criteria but true by definition: they're all from identical DNA.

Well?

Oh and yes- I caught on to this from eBay and thought "if they can grow 6" plants for $10.00, so can I" and from the advice here is turning into a project that has little to nothing to do with money. I called this endeavor "The Moruga Project" for that reason.
 
Scovilles depend oon a lot of different things such as water, temperature, nutrients, root space etc... Even if they are clones from the same plant. If I were to grow a clone from one of your plants here in Vegas with minimal water in a small pot it will have a much higher shu than yours grown in really good soil watered very well in a large pot because it is different environments and stressors
 
What do more people think? It's not unusual for a company (like Monsanto) to get a patent on DNA... I am kinda moving in that direction. Another way I see it is like if you buy an autograph, you want the certificate of authenticity to prove it. Me eventually getting my DNA sample tested... well, you get the idea.
 
THE BIZ said:
Moruga
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Click to expand...

Badass Tat Bro !

moruga said:
Created a new shelf and transplanted 10 sweet and 12 hot pepper plants.

moruga7f_zps70fbbefe.jpg


Here's my theory. Take one plant and clone it. Grow the clones, build up a lot of them from the clones. They will all be genetically identical.

Take from the plant a pepper and have it tested for an exact SHU measurement. When? Dosen't matter when... I am rolling the dice with one plant and it's unique DNA and hoping that years later it can be tested, then I'll have an exact SHU for the entire crop as they're all clones. Then I can call my plant an heirloom- maybe not by your criteria but true by definition: they're all from identical DNA.

Well?

Oh and yes- I caught on to this from eBay and thought "if they can grow 6" plants for $10.00, so can I" and from the advice here is turning into a project that has little to nothing to do with money. I called this endeavor "The Moruga Project" for that reason.
Click to expand...
i would suggest more light
 
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