How to make a hot bell pepper?

[Alan]

Ok, having done very little relative work with peppers, here is my question which perhaps someone with more pepper knowledge than me can answer, and it is toatally going to sound like a "newbie" (god, I hate that word) question.


What can I cross to come up with a very hot bell pepper?

The reason I ask is I don't know if peppers cross accross species lines? Perhaps someone here does and can make a suggestion. I presume that crossing a bell pepper is very much like crossing a tomato?

[jason]

Hey alan,

Hopefully someone with experience can anwser this question, because I would be interested also. I found this link:

www.thechileman.org/guide_seedsaving.php

There is a chart on that site that kind of mentions the viability of seeds from crosses between species. I think if you were successful in crossing a C. chinense with bell pepper which is annuum that would be awesome. Otherwise, maybe try to find the hottest, nicest shaped annuum and cross that with a bell pepper you like. Cool idea, anyway.

[Alan]

thanks greengrass and very much appreciated friend. I'm going to do some research and see what I can come up with. Hopefully in time this will work out.

-Alan

[landarc]

Alan,
Take a look around for something called a Mexi-bell. I recall eating some of these, they were hottish. It might be a starting point. I think Bluelytes mentioned here before. I grew something called chilhaucle last year that had the basic form of a tiny bell pepper, but, carried a nice punch of heat. It is considered an essential chile for some of the mole sauces in Mexico.

[Alan]

Thanks Landarc, Bluelites was kind enough to send me a sample of the mexi-bells which I will be growing out this year. I'm not sure of the heat within the mexi-bells, but I would love to breed something with a real "bite". Something that looks like a bell but burns like a habenero. I'm definetly going to do some crossing and some research on it this coming summer, I really hope I can come up with something that will work.

Can you imagine stuffed bell peppers of this type? Who needs tobasco sauce!

[flowerpower]

How good would those be in Chili? Mmmm.. No stuffed with Chili lol Sounds like a good breeding project.

[Alan]

Good Idea too, except I'm not big on Chili!


Though I would be lying if I didn't say this had something to do with messing with my friends who love bell peppers. That's why I thought I would name it "Got Your Ass" or maybe even better, call it "Hells Bells" since that would go with my theme of naming things!

I see a big hit in this if I can actually pull it off. Perhaps this will be my masterpiece which I'll spend the rest of my life working on!

LOL

I'm a dork!

[bluelacedredhead]

Define Dork: Developer Of Reform in the Kitchengarden

[Alan]

Thanks for making me laugh friend!

[bluelacedredhead]

YW.
This might be a better phrase though?
Developer of Revolution in the Kitchengarden..

[bunkie]

this is an interesting idea alan. i was googling around thinking that the European or Asian varieties might have a hot bell pepper of sorts you could use. i was reading that Jamacan farmers cultivated four types of hot peppers before 1770 (cherry, scotch bonnet, bell and finger). this was in a pdf file here...File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
The small, hot peppers that. Columbus took to Europe. probably looked something. like this:. The large sweet bell. peppers we have now ...
www.indiana.edu/~oso/scenarios/peppers.pdf (on top of this page if that link won't work...http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=European+hot+bell+pepper+&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

if one could find these original hot bell peppers...there must be more research somewhere, or records.

[locked out Dave]

ALAN..

Remind me if i forget.. but i have a hot bell i will try and send you seeds for. It was one of the ones out of last seasons pepper trials... I might even find it's name if i look hard enough... although I doubt it. It was just a regular looking bell pepper, orangish red in color. I didn't even realize it was a hot one till i tried it. I did save seeds from it though.

It's my understanding that the hot gene is the dominate one... so that's why whenever a hot variety crosses with a sweet one.. they would always become hot. Maybe someone with more pepper breeding knowledge can explain it better. But that's why i always try to keep the types seperated by as much distance as i can.

Dave

BTW.. i had to go thru the security check thingy just to post this message. I think somethings wrong with your site today. It shows me as logged in on the who's online part at the bottom, yet it says welcome guest on the top of the page.. no matter how many times i log in.

[Alan]

Thanks for the link Bunkie, very useful and I'm glad your interested, hopefully I can get this thing going and we can all have some "Hells Bells", LOL.

Dave, thanks for the pepper seeds, when and if you have a chance to dig them out I would love to give them a go and see what I end up with.

I don't know why the site has you locked out, it hasn't given me any problems today and I haven't gotten any messages from anyone else who is locked out, if it keeps it up then let me know and I'll do some more research and see what is going on friend.

Thanks for the seed offer!

I can't wait to get this project up and going!

[Alan]

Does anybody know what size pepper the Mexi-Bells are. I got my seeds started from Bluelytes, they are up and doing well. If it's a decent size I may use it as my starting point. Ideally I would like to have a relatively large bell shape to go with, I want this thing to look like it is the sweetest bell pepper you could ever imagine at a market, but to bite back, and hard, when you eat it.

[canadamike]

Alan, I just looked at a picture of it on a commercial site and it looks like a cheese pepper, I would say almost the girt of a bell but half the lenght.