When to add initials?

AJ Drew

AJ Drew

Reading an old thread.  Doesn't matter the specific pepper.  In the discussion, someone indicated someone else should not have claimed a thing as his pepper because he had not crossed peppers to come up with it.  Seems odd to me because one of the best known peppers is the Butch T Scorpion which is not a hybrid at all.  As I understand it, the thing is a natural variant of Trinidad Scorpion which Mr Taylor isolated. 

It seems to me that if multiple strains are using the same name, that initials are appropriate for peppers that were made unique by any method.  Am I wrong?  Is there a better way to tell them apart?
 
austin87 said:
I asked a kind of similar question yesterday (http://thehotpepper.com/topic/62561-douglah-x-bhutnaga/) didn't get quite the answer I was looking for, but I think that's because it's open to interpretation. Also kind of ties back to your post about the Chocolate Bhutlah CS.
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Ye, Chocolate Bhutlah CS is what got me to thinking about it again.  Been goofing with some things for some time.  I dont want to sound all pompous by adding initials, but I do want to note origin.  I get the feeling no matter what a person does someone is not going to like it.
 
AJ Drew said:
Seems odd to me because one of the best known peppers is the Butch T Scorpion which is not a hybrid at all.  As I understand it, the thing is a natural variant of Trinidad Scorpion which Mr Taylor isolated. 

It seems to me that if multiple strains are using the same name, that initials are appropriate for peppers that were made unique by any method.  Am I wrong?  Is there a better way to tell them apart?
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This is a New Yorker article that interviewed Butch with his input on the Trinidad Scorpion, FIRE-EATERS (The search for the hottest chili.)

Butch T, of the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T, is Butch Taylor, a plumber in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 2005, Taylor got some Trinidad Scorpion seeds from a guy named Mark in New Jersey, who had got them from a local nursery. Taylor recalled, “When I grew them down here, they just grew unbelievable. I got three plants out of five seeds, and every plant I grew was dedicated to seeds. The first time I tasted it, I just thought, This is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Taylor kept growing the plants, selecting at each generation for the hottest specimens. He gave the seeds away to chiliheads all over the world, sticking a little label that said “Butch T” at the bottom of each packet, so that absent-minded recipients would be able to keep track of where they had come from. Besides that, he didn’t think much of it. “I didn’t have any money to pay for testing—I didn’t even know how to have them tested at the time,” he told me. “And since I was growing the seeds, not selling them, I couldn’t see the purpose of setting the record.” He learned that his namesake chili was the hottest chili in the world, according to Guinness, the day that the record was announced. The Australians who developed Taylor’s strain into a winner had named it after him. “It took me a while to get my head around it, because I’m a little more shy, unless I’ve been drinking or something,” he recalled. “I thought that was very decent of them.”
 
I believe it was the Wit family in AU that added the ButchT to the peppers name, The Chilli Factory
 
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Yip Butch Taylor never added his own initials - Rev. Smith did that.  I know that people have added initials to differentiate that particular "form" from another - e.g. Trinidad Scorpion AJ (Alabama Jack).  Different folks select for different traits including phenotype.  I always note the supplier of the seed on both my labels and seed packets - I have the same thing but from different sources so its good to know who's who.
 
It's a good way to differentiate different sources of the same variety or same cross made from different individuals.
When i've joined THP the first one i've seen using initials when tagging his images was Chris Phillips, nuff said.
 
Datil
 
IMO when a pepper has genuinely different traits (shape, size, taste or heat) and seems to be consistently reproducing those traits after a few generations then there should be an initial. For the sake of keeping track.

I recently aquired Red Bhut seeds that are said to be superior according to the source, if I agree and keep seeds then I will pass these seeds on along with the initial of the person whome I got them from. If I gave them away as just Red Bhut then they may be overlooked which would be a shame.
 
I've been saving seeds from Bonnets collected from local markets, and I've been writing the source and year I collected them on the envelopes b/c I'm trying to be thorough.  (EG, I wrote "TFM2016" on the ones I got at the Trenton Farmer's Market this summer, so I don't confuse them with the TFM seeds I get from online sources.  FWIW, the TFM pods I got from members here are slightly different in appearance and shape from the pods I bought at the 
TFM.)  I think some folks misconstrue these kinds of efforts as attempts to take "credit" for the strain.  And, in some cases, that does seem to be the situation.  But, for many of us, I think we're just trying to be thorough.  Seeds I got from members here, I have noted their username on the baggies so I can keep it straight in my head, in case something unusual comes out of it.
 
OCD is annoying, but it sometimes helps with these kinds of things.  :P
 
RobStar said:
Yip Butch Taylor never added his own initials - Rev. Smith did that.  I know that people have added initials to differentiate that particular "form" from another - e.g. Trinidad Scorpion AJ (Alabama Jack).  Different folks select for different traits including phenotype.  I always note the supplier of the seed on both my labels and seed packets - I have the same thing but from different sources so its good to know who's who.
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Funny you should bring that up because there is another side to the coin.  Some folk think it pompous to put your initials behind something you isolated rather than created.  Others think it misleading to give it a new name.  As with the Butch T Scorpion, obviously there is a need to differentiate the strain.  It seems a person is damned if they do and damned if they don't.

For opinion, I put out this idea for convention

Unstable Crosses - Label as Pepper A x Pepper B
Stable Crosses - Give em a new name
Stable variations - Same name, but initials after the name
 
Thoughts?

Have been goofing with an off pod shape that my mason jar of seeds has BP behind the original strain name.  Stands for butt plug cause that is what it looks like.  Didn't grow out that way this year, so done with it.  But was really hopping to one day release the thing that way to make people laugh when they found out what the letters stood for.
 
It would be maybe a week of work for me to set something up, but a pepper registry would be useful.  Nothing earth shattering, just you photograph and upload, you get a number.  Just a way to put everyone on the same page, you know you say pepper number 43 and they say pepper number 34 and you guys know you are talking about different strains.
 
i don't mind having the initials in case they are different phenotype... but if it's just 2 guys measuring their dicks then meh...
 
I do think it's important to have place to look and say THIS is the correct pheno type for this variety.
there are quite a few people who wonder "is this a ghost" "is this a scorpion or moruga scorpion" etc etc. all would be solved with a simple reference.
 
i created http://pepperdatabase.org because i saw the same need you did now. you could check it out and give me feedback
i have been working on it for around a year now. it's a work in progress hope to get some active contributors besides just myself.
 
Have visited and I LOVE the effort.  If more people knew how the Wiki language worked and had an interest, what you are up to could become incredibly useful.   Trick is getting people involved and getting them to learn how to Wiki.  I have tried, I get so very confused.  It is almost like learning html all over again.  I was thinking something more like someone gets their ID number and then they are the authority of that ID number. 
 
i made the editor html based. no need to learn wiki. =]
 
ah yeah that makes sense. more like how the government does accessions.
 
AJ Drew said:
 
Funny you should bring that up because there is another side to the coin.  Some folk think it pompous to put your initials behind something you isolated rather than created.  Others think it misleading to give it a new name.  As with the Butch T Scorpion, obviously there is a need to differentiate the strain.  It seems a person is damned if they do and damned if they don't.
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If you decided to give it your initials then it might be frowned upon although to be honest I have never encountered that.  As an example of what generally happens: I receive a stable Bhut Jolokia variation (wrinkly with long white pubescens  ;)) from you then I distribute those seeds as Bhut Jolokia AJD.
 
I do indeed like your suggestion - we do need some form of sytem.
 
juanitos said:
i made the editor html based. no need to learn wiki. =]
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Is that a media wiki option or did you do something fancy?  Personally, I dont know why they invented the wiki language.  I get the feeling it was like bb code.  You know, to only allow certain html.  But every language I know has built in functions to let you filter all tags except the ones you want. 

I am still stuck in pepper mode.  Shortly after first frost, having some more surgery.  After that will be couch locked for months with my lap top and visual php.  If this is a topic you enjoy, would love to talk more when my head is in that mode.  Working on a blogging platform like the site wordpress.com.  Basically, just a theme but one that has more front end components.
 
When your intentions are
1. Spreading confusion and create chaos
2. Money, money and more money
Then add the initials.
 
The point is: we already have pepper's seed banks and research institutes (CPI, CARDI, CGN, CAP, PI, GRIF...) which surely are entitled to claim a certain variety because they work on a scientific and professional base, and usually when they do that, it's because they've found genetics carachters which are different from others-
 
Then, many seeds sellers do this; SLP Semillas La Palma, THSC The Hippy Seed Company, PL PepperLover and they have also an economic interest, which is fair, to claim a variety they created in order to differentiate from the ones sold by other companies.
 
But if we step down to every growers...Well, watch the Bhutlah: you already have the CS, SM, DM, PL and God only knows how many others are going to surface...And i have no harsh against all those growers, i truly respect them.
But i think that when it comes to this point, anyone can claim his own variety, specially because we don't know who isolates and grows only pure seeds: so, in a well recognized and stable variety, let's take the Jonah for example, the one i'll grow can be genetically slightly different from the ones every other grows.
But i don't think this is enough to add initials: we are going to have thousands of varieties with thousand different names that, basically, are all the same thing
 
Guitarman said:
we are going to have thousands of varieties with thousand different names that, basically, are all the same thing
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Good point, add to that accidental crosses and seeds being mixed up and miss labelled kind of seems like it will be impossible to stay on top of. Seems that in quite a few glogs people are getting unexpected results.
 
I agree that, if you're trying to act like it's a different strain of chile just b/c you added some initials, you're going to spread confusion for little or no reason.  But, isn't there some value to keeping track of the source?  If you plant some Bonnets you got from source "x", and you plant some other Bonnets you got from source "y", isn't it good to distinguish the two in your own notes?  B/c if one is markedly better'n the other, wouldn't you want to get more seeds from that source, and maybe avoid growing out seeds from the other source, in the future?
 
I think there is another reason for initials.  If you are sharing or selling seed, there are times you want to distance your seeds from others by the same name.  I put PBM behind chocolate reaper because I want folk to understand they are not the same stock that there was so much flack about a few years ago.  However, I did not want to spell out that flack or use anyone's name.  Then for Chocolate Bhutlah, I put UK behind the name for the title and this in the description:

"This is absolutely NOT the cross currently being developed by Steven McLaurin (AKA StandandFire) and the Puckerbutt Pepper Company."
 
In the case of Chocolate Bhutlah, I think it is most ethical to make the distinction rather than not.  In the case of Chocolate Reaper, well I did not want to step in that stuff that happened years ago.  So initials and other tags can be used to distance rather than associate too,
 
 
Bicycle808 said:
I agree that, if you're trying to act like it's a different strain of chile just b/c you added some initials, you're going to spread confusion for little or no reason.  But, isn't there some value to keeping track of the source?  If you plant some Bonnets you got from source "x", and you plant some other Bonnets you got from source "y", isn't it good to distinguish the two in your own notes?  B/c if one is markedly better'n the other, wouldn't you want to get more seeds from that source, and maybe avoid growing out seeds from the other source, in the future?
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What you said about notes hits home.  Especially since you used Bonnets as an example.  I remember trying and trying to get the bonnet look out of Scotch Bonnets.  Not sure if you have run into the seed catalogs that show the bonnet look but the seed grows out hab looking.  Have horrible memory.  I am fairly sure in my quest, I grew the same stock from the same vendors over and over expecting different results.  Read somewhere that is the definition of insanity,  Now that I keep source notes, much better results, less time and money wasted, and I have bonnets that look like bonnets.
 
After thought:  Chocolate Bhutlah PL

Making the discussion stranger.  If I understand the events properly, Pepper Lover sold some pods as 'Bhutlah' or maybe 'Brown Bhutlah' a few years ago but did not sell seed stock.  Today, there are seed sites selling "Chocolate Bhutlah PL".  Now on the one hand, it is good that they are distinguishing between what they are selling and Chocolate Bhutlah SM.  But on the other hand, if Pepper Lover did not think they were ready to be sold as seed stock then I dont think putting the PL on them is really the right thing to do either,

Thank you everyone in the thread.
 
AJ Drew said:
What you said about notes hits home.  Especially since you used Bonnets as an example.  I remember trying and trying to get the bonnet look out of Scotch Bonnets.  Not sure if you have run into the seed catalogs that show the bonnet look but the seed grows out hab looking.  Have horrible memory.  I am fairly sure in my quest, I grew the same stock from the same vendors over and over expecting different results.  Read somewhere that is the definition of insanity,  Now that I keep source notes, much better results, less time and money wasted, and I have bonnets that look like bonnets.
Click to expand...
 
I'm really quite new to this chile-growing thing, so I feel awkward giving any advice.  However, I have found that in most pursuits that combine art with science, careful notes can prevent one from repeating a failure, and they can help one in replicating a success.  So, I take notes.  And, if I give someone seeds, I'm going to offer notes on the source--not b/c I'm trying to front like the seeds are something "special," but b/c i'm the type of guy who likes to share his notes.  What other folks decide to do with said notes, is entirely up to them.
 
I recently saved seeds from some red Bonnets I bought at a local market.  The pods were in bad shape; they were in a little styro tray with the plastic wrap, many looked smushed and bruised.  One had a bit of mold growing where the stem met the flesh.  But, the pods had a nice Bonnet shape, so I bought'm.  I saved all the seeds that were the proper color, and discarded the ones that looked like they may've been molded.  The smell was unmistakably Bonnet-like, and I tried a sliver of the least-gross looking pod.  Definitely bonnets.  So, now they're in a little baggie marked "SB Asian Food Market."  In intend to grow these, see how it goes.  For all I know, they're the shittiest Bonnets ever.  But, I wanted to find out for sure.  Without my notes, i'd probably just never germinate'm, or maybe i would but forget where they'd come from. If they suck, I'll know not to save seeds from the AFM Bonnets again.  And, if they're awesome, I'll know exactly where to buy more....all because of my notes.
 
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