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Very strange Biker Billy plant... what the...?

U

UltraZelda64

I don't have a decent camera or know of a place to upload, so I'll have to describe it. It's a Burpee Biker Billy Hybrid Jalapeno seedling. When it first sprouted, I knew I had a weird one... instead of the usual single thin stem sticking straight up with two seed leaves, it was this short, fat, curved stem that had two tiny seed leaves, followed by some more thick stem, and... two more leaves (not sure if these are seed leaves too, or not, but I think they are...).

When sowing the seeds, I recall seeing one seed that looked... well, big and odd. I was wondering if it would be OK, because it seemed bigger than the rest. In hindsight... I think this plant is the result of that seed.

All of the seedlings are bigger now, and a look at this specific Biker Billy plant reveals that there appears to be some sort of separation in the middle of the stem, as if it's two stems fused into one. It's like a line "engraved" in the middle of the stem. Also, there is a new set of leaves coming, which I think are the first "true" leaves. The stem is still short and fat compared to the rest of the seedlings, all of which are tall and skinny.

I have a habanero and some sort of bell pepper with three seed leaves, but they're mostly the same in structure as all of the rest of the "normal" ones (long stem followed by seed leaves, but three instead of two). I thought those two were bizarre, but Billy has those two beat. Any ideas? Should I try to keep this plant (as well as the three-leaved ones) or cut 'em off? All of the plants except two types are Burpee by the way, including the three strange ones.
 
very interesting description Zelda...

I noticed one of my seedlings is kinda the same as you describe...it is a Black Congo...

here are a couple of pics...does yours look anything like this?

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I think Potawie said that the seedlings with three cotyledons don't grow to be a productive plant if I remember correctly...
 
AJ: Well, mine looks quite different due to its immaturity compared the way yours look--mine has much smaller leaves and less detail in the leaves and stem. They're all only just now starting to grow their first true leaves, so it's somewhat hard to compare. When it first came up, if I remember right, there was a thick stem of maybe 1.5cm tall, followed by the two seed leaves... then another 1.5-2cm of stem and two more tiny (seed?) leaves (lengths are guesses, I didn't actually measure it). It was, and is, much more crooked than yours looks, with one bend just above the base of the plant and another bend about halfway up the plant (around the first set of leaves). It doesn't bend very easily, and it didn't when it first sprouted either--it sprouted tough (one thing's for sure, it won't need much artificial wind treatment, heh).

By the way, how old are those plants? They look pretty nice... I'm not sure if mine will eventually start looking more like those or not. I don't have a very good lighting setup (constantly moving them between window and artificial light), so I somewhat doubt it. All of mine were planted around Feb. 5 (hopefully my timing was decent...). I'm new at this, so I don't really know what to expect (could end up with only a couple survivors, for all I know...).
 
black congo seeds were planted 31 January...they are only about 3 cm tall max...

here are the billy bikers that were planted 4 February...they are close to 6cm tall...

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I have a pretty good seed starting/seedling grow setup in my garage...you can see the top leaves are almost touching the light bulbs...these will be ready for sale in about another 7 days....
 
not to derail this thread, but yes, for sale...locally...at flea markets, farmers markets, where ever I can get a space...gotta support this hobby the best way I can...

Zelda, I sure would love to see a picture of your odditiy...any pic would do...and you can use one of the photo hosting sites like photobucket.com, imageshack.com, flikr.com...and once they are loaded onto the site, paste the image code (IMG) into your post and it will work...
 
I had a 3 cotyledon White Habanero, it died though, planted the same as it's siblings, but it wilted up and croaked :( Oh well, I got 8 more LOL
 
Wow, my plants must be really malnourished. Anyway, about pictures. The most I have is a cell phone camera (I'm sure you know how bad those are), and my mom has a digital camera that I might be able to use... but it's a cheap, no-name POS, so I might be better off with the phone, actually. Hold on a little bit, I'll see if I can get something decent taken. I'll edit and add to this post if possible.

UPDATE: Alright, I took a couple pictures with a real camera, and one with a phone. Ironically, the one with the best quality was the phone. ImageShack requires no registration, so here it is:



That little, thin, tiny piece up at the very tip of the plant... I think those are the first true leaves. The four below it all came up out of the soil. And another thing I noticed earlier while taking the pictures: the stem does seem to separate a little about halfway up the plant. The separation can't be seen in the picture, though.
 
not trying to be a smart butt Zelda, but if you put somethig white behind the plant, it will show up better...I can't tell a thing in the pic you posted...
 
AlabamaJack said:
not trying to be a smart butt Zelda, but if you put somethig white behind the plant, it will show up better...I can't tell a thing in the pic you posted...
Click to expand...

Well, I virtually never use cameras, and am definitely not a photographer (nor is the camera/phone really any good to begin with). I did it right in front of the window, hoping the light and snow outside would be enough. Oh well. It's pretty much as I described though. Honestly, to get anything decent from those cameras, I would probably need to take them outside in more direct sunlight... and it's 33 degrees out. And it would *still* look like it came out of a crappy toy of a camera.

Edit: Maybe the brightness is just too low for your monitor though, try increasing it in an image editor... it looks like crap on mine, but I can still see the details (well, what little details the camera can capture). If you think that's dark and hard to see, heh... you're lucky I didn't post the pictures from the real camera. :P
 
Hmmm... now that you mention it, it does look relatively clear in the distance compared to the foreground. Didn't notice that at all on the phone's tiny screen, so I didn't touch the zoom/focus controls. Really, I need something halfway decent before before snapping any more pictures. That phone's a PITA to work with.
 
Pull the phone farther away from the plant if you can, not so much that the plant is too small to resolve detail, but enough so it's sharper. Also if the camera has an auto focus, try keeping a part of the plant (like the stem) in the very center of the frame so as to get the camera to focus on it instead of the background.
 
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