• If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.

Three more 2018 All-American Selections

In July I made a post about the 2017 AAS winners and included Onyx Red, which had just been awarded a 2018 AAS award.
As of Today, three more 2018 All-American Selections have been made for hot and sweet peppers, for a total of 4. That is a big year for peppers. The winners are below.
 
Red Ember F1 (Cayenne)
Pepper_red_ember-432x650.jpg

 
Red Ember produces a large number of rounded end fruits on durable, medium-sized plants. Judges described the thick-walled fruits as spicy, but tastier than the traditional cayenne, with just enough pungency for interest. The variety is an earlier producer, so its well suited for shorter growing seasons.
 
Breeder: Johnny's Seeds. BUY SEED
 
Roulette F1 (Habanero)
Pepper-habanero-Roulette-768x768.jpg

 
We've been seeing sweet heat-less habaneros coming out for a few years now, but to my knowledge this is the first one bred with all the resources of a large seed company. This variety of sweet hab was bred by Terry Berke at Seminis, so the variety was trialed at various locations all over North America before release. Gardeners will be delighted with the earlier production of large, uniform fruit and a very high yield. One judge noted that each plant easily produces 10-11 fruits at one time and up to 100 per season so there are plenty to eat fresh, cook with, and enjoy! 
 
Breeder: Seminis Vegetable Seeds, SEED NOT YET FOR SALE
 
 
 
Mexican Sunrise F1 (Hungarian)
Pepper-Hungarian-Mexican-Sunrise-768x768.jpg

 
This was a regional winner for the Southeast and Southwest. Mexican Sunrise Hungarian Pepper F1 brings to the garden a full spectrum of colors from lime green to yellow then orange and red as the fruit matures. These earlier maturing conical pendant shaped peppers produce a thick-walled fruit that can be eaten at any stage. The fruits are semi-hot, attractive peppers which can be used for ornamental purposes as well as for processing, pickling, and fresh preparations. Vegetable gardeners are sure to enjoy this pepper with its attractive fruit, early maturity and high yielding plants that look great in any gardenscape.
 
Breeder: Seeds By Design. BUY SEED maybe its this one? seeds by design uses the same picture for this variety but they don't list it under the same name...
 
Chewi said:
I'd like to try the Red Ember but that 'high yield" hab that has 10-11 peppers at once doesn't do much for me lol!
 
Edit: I looked at the second page there and the early season Aji Rico looks promising as well!  
 
100 per season is nothing to shake a stick at though!
 
Cool stuff! Thanks for sharing!
 
I wonder how stable these varieties will be? Will they try to grow out a stable pheno? Surely they would have to...
 
ThatBlondGuy101 said:
Cool stuff! Thanks for sharing!
 
I wonder how stable these varieties will be? Will they try to grow out a stable pheno? Surely they would have to...
 
They're all F1 hybrids, so every seed you buy from the company is the first product of a cross, and all of the seed is identical. If you save seed though, they all start segregating and be different again. This sort of forces you to buy new seed every year, but its worth it for most gardeners.
 
Breeding F1s (by finding the best combinations of mother and father) is the only way seed companies can make money in peppers anymore, because growers have to buy new seed each year.  I'm fine with it, the hybrid vigor is worth a few bucks for a bag of seed, the breeders have so many resources to screen thousands of combinations at multiple sites every year that you know all of the releases are going to be fantastic plants. Its kind of a different mindset from breeding in your back yard for heat, because these companies (Seminis, Johnny's, only a few others actively breed vegetables) need their seed to grow well all over the country. That means that screening for disease resistances, heat and cold tolerance, and different photoperiods are all just as important as flavor.
 
Back
Top