Canoncito - earliest ripe pepper

[diane]

I have a ripe red Canoncito in my garden.

Let me set the stage: I live near the beach in the Pacific Northwest. Strawberries are ripe.
A couple of tomatoes have flower buds, but most don't yet.

The Canoncito is a landrace from 6000 feet in northern New Mexico. Apparently it is sown
directly there, though I don't know when. I treated the seeds like all my other peppers -
sowed in the greenhouse in mid-February and then transplanted them in May. Maybe I
will try direct-sowing next year.

I bought the seeds from Wild Garden Seeds.

[mjc]

They do say in the description that is a rapid grower, early germinator and precocious flowering...sounds like a pepper I should be growing, as I never seem to get enough until the end of the season.

[diane]

I've done some more reading. Canoncito is sown May 1 in the Embudo Valley, which has a 3 1/2 month growing season, in a good year.

Testing has been done with direct seeding of Canoncito and another landrace - Chimayo and greenhouse sowing/transplanting,
and the direct-seeded plants did much better. I wonder why?

So, next year I will direct sow some of both (I have some old Chimayo seeds) on May 1 and see what happens. Our night temperatures
coincide, though our days are seldom as hot. (we get one or two "degree days" per summer).

[steev]

Given that environmentally-exposed factors aren't a problem, I think it stands to reason that plants that experience no transplant-disruption would do better, getting their roots better established and all.

[imgrimmer]

Is there a sweet version of such a rapid pepper?

[mjc]

Here's the description from the online catalog...

These were passed along to us by Loretta Sandoval at the 2014 Organic Seed Growers Conference. We were caught off guard by the rapid growth and precocious flowering of these diverse chilies. For transplants don’t plant too early—perhaps two weeks later than our Italians. Makes thick sets of 3–6” mild thin walled chilies at our coldest location, and no plastic mulch. This year we made dozens of selections from the diversity–ranges of heat and sweetness, wall thickness and smoothness, upright verses creeping habit.

Notice the part about selections for heat?

My guess is it's an overall mild pepper that, while not totally, heat free, can be made so, pretty easily, in a couple of generations.

[diane]

The ripe pepper was the total effort of that one plant - there aren't any more flowers.
I've sown some of its seeds already to see what it does in summer. It would be odd
if extreme earliness is linked with minimal production.

The other plants do have several green ones.

[mjc]

Ripening fully on the plant slows/stops production. To maximize the numbers, you need to pick the peppers when fully developed, but not ripened.

[ericbernhard]

Jun 22, 2017 14:45:32 GMT -5 diane said:

I have a ripe red Canoncito in my garden.

That has me really impressed. You have inspired me to go scrambling around looking for seed of Canoncito. Do you have any to spare?
My climate seems to be similar to yours, although I believe you might even have a cooler climate.
I am doing a growout this year of New Mexican Landrace chiles and have been more than impressed. Especially amazing has been Velarde. It was the first to start flowering and hasn´t let up since. In a close second has to be Chimayo. It just grows and grows regardless of the weather. The other downside of Velarde is it´s highly prostrate growing habit. That would be great in a hanging basket but is quite impractical in the garden. I have to keep gathering up the branches and tying them to the stake. My hope is that crossing it to Chimayo can improve its growth habit while retaining the earliness and productivity.
Thanks for the cool share!

[diane]

The seeds I sowed in late June did not germinate, so I won't share them.

Perhaps pepper seeds have a dormancy. It has been two months since the fruit was ripe, so I will sow a few more.

[walt]

I don't know how I missed this thread in the past.  I have been looking for something like this.

[imgrimmer]

I wonder how elaborate it would be to turn canoncito into a sweet pepper. Any idea?

[walt]

articles.extension.org/pages/32603/pepper-heat
 
It says that there are many genes that determine degrees of heat, but one that determines heat vs. no heat.
Should be a simple backcrossing project.  And after the first geenration, it should go rather quickly, as quick production is the goal.    

[oxbowfarm]

I'm very interested in these New Mexican landrace peppers myself. I first heard about Cañoncito on a Facebook group I was on with Loreta Sandoval. She farms in Dixon, NM and acquired it from her neighbors. If you google map Dixon you can see how far north in NM it is and in some fairly high altitude area, so I imagine its a relatively short growing season in terms of frost, they farm with irrigation in the bottomland which means earlier frost. So its easy to see how a direct seeded pepper would get extreme selection for earliness. I haven't grown Cañoncito yet, Wild Garden was charging quite a bit for the seed last year and I couldn't justify it since I had already purchased 5 or 6 other New Mexican landrace peppers from Native Seeds/SEARCH. None of them were from as far north as Dixon though.

I'd bet there are a few other local landraces of peppers of these types in the little towns up the Rio Grande heading upstream into the San Luis Valley. I don't remember anyone growing such peppers when I lived in Alamosa, but I was a freshman in HS when we left and peppers were not honestly on my mind in those days.

Wild Garden Seed describes Cañoncito as quite variable in heat and wall thickness, but I know that it is selected for ristra drying by Loreta, so I cannot imagine the walls are terribly thick, as ristra peppers need to dry vs mold.

I'm kind of interested in using these NM peppers and my favorite chile "Mosco" which is a guajillo type grown in Colorado near Pueblo, to try and create a direct seedable  chile that is also a good red drying pepper when ripened. I don't know that I'd make ristras, thats pretty much an arid climate thing.

There's lots of the NM peppers (but not Cañoncito) from NS/S and from Reimer's seeds. Mosco is available from a few sources but the best strain I've used comes from Burrell's.

[imgrimmer]

www.wildgardenseed.com/ have different selections of canoncito. also a nearly heat free strain.
I was told they will sell it in new season.