How to breed peppers (Video)

I thought you guys might enjoy this video.

From here

Awesome info. Jack Spirko just did a podcast and touched on this a little bit, its cool to see it in practice. Thanks for sharing.

great video emerson, i did a little bit of hot pepper breeding last season. the seeds are in the soil now and im waiting for them to pop, cant wait to see what i get.

Since you guys probably know what you are doing, I thought I would ask some questions regarding hybrids.

1. If you plant 2 hybrid plants and they cross pollinate, how does the first generation act? Will the plants from the seeds taken from the hybrid plants produce fruit that is some type of form of the parent plant, or could it be a mixture of both maternal and paternal? And is that considered F1 or F2?

2. Also, this is my understanding and correct me if I am wrong…..When 2 open pollinated plants cross, the plants that are grown from the seed of those plants will be an F1 and will be a combo of both parents. If those F1 plants are crossed with each other and only each other for the next 7 generations and the unwanted characteristics culled out, then that is a new type of hybrid or is it considered a new open pollinated variety?

3. I saw on seedsave.org the following:

PLANT: Separate varieties with short styles (most modern varieties) by at least 10 feet. Varieties with long styles (heirlooms and older varieties) need at least 100 feet to ensure purity. If solitary bees are prevalent, separate all varieties at least 100 feet and place another flowering crop between.

How do you tell the difference between short and long styles? Is this an obvious difference visually?

Hopefully that makes sense.

1) The first generation of hybrids are F1 hybrids, since their parents were likely to be inbred lines (containing two copied of one set of genes) they will all contain the same two sets of genes. When they breed with each other you can get two copies of one set or two copies of the other or (far more likely) something in between. Since there is so much variation in this second generation (F2) there is no way to ensure what you get out.

2) It's not hard and fast to 7 generations and some traits cannot be dehybridized (fixed in an open pollinated variety) with standard breeding practices. If you want to make a new open pollinated variety remember to plant lots and lots and lots of seeds and make sure that you don't leave them open to any old sailor pollen that comes wafting in to port on a bee.

3)I don't know for certain about this, I'd suggest that you stick with 100+ feet.

There are 5 major species of peppers.  Some interbreed easily, some so-so, and some not at all.  If you plan on crossing peppers, you need to determine if you are dealing with two compatible species.  For quick ref, about ½ way down this page is a chart showing compatibilities:

http://peppermania.com/chile_facts.html

This is an old thread, but my question seems relevant here.  Somehow in the past we got very lucky and never planted two pepper varieties next to each other.

This year, we accidentally planted a few *hot* Hungarian Wax peppers in the middle of our thick-walled mild 'Sweet Round' pepper variety.  It's possibly worth mentioning that the reciprocal is NOT the case----our patch of Hungarian Wax this year only has that variety in it.  What I can't recall is if the 'heat' of the Hungarian Wax can be used to confirm if any of the Round Sweet peppers arose through cross-pollination by the hot Wax peppers..?  The Sweet Rounds traditionally have no heat whatsoever, but would they have *some* heat if pollen from the Hun-Wax had initiated a pepper fruit on the Round Sweet plant?  If it's that simple, then I could just taste the Round Sweet pepper and save the seeds from only the mild ones to confirm that it will (hopefully?) remain true-breeding for 'Round Sweet'.  Thoughts?

I never bred peppers, therefore I may be wrong. However, extrapolating from other species:

The pepper will probably taste exactly the same even if crossed, but the seeds may be hot if crossed. It may be one seed out of the hundred in the pepper, and you only know it after eating it...
Compare it with a pig: the belly of the pig will taste the same even if crossed with a wild boar, but some of the piglets may look different after coming out.