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Look at this commercial grower video. Big fields of ALL ripe red peppers, short plants with no stakes to hold plants up.

Plants are loaded with all RED color peppers and NO Green peppers?

If I don't stake my peppers plants limbs get heavy and break off. If I don't pick red pepper as they change color green to red they develop rotted places. I would love to have pepper plants that need no stakes to hold them up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSiyh47JD_k

I don't know of any pepper that does not start off green or another color. I only see peppers that ripen to red. Most of my peppers do not ripen all at once, so I usually have peppers in different stages. I don't have to stake most of my hot peppers. Thai, super chili, Hawaiian chili will all stand upright even with a heavy pepper load. The plants with larger peppers like bells, anaheim, habanero, bullhorn peppers, etc will either lean on each other if they are planted close or may need staking to support the larger peppers.

The video in the link was of paprika peppers. They may have a way to ripen all of their peppers at once using a chemical. They used to do that here to the pineapple fields to ripen fruit faster. If the pepper plants are older, their branches are stronger and need less support. They will be taller unless they are cut back, which you would have to do with an older pepper to improve production.

Some peppers don't need that much support. That would depend on the variety. I have never had a bell pepper live very long and it has always needed support. I have never had a pepper that starts and ends red.

47 years ago a Korean Lady gave me a dried pepper that was full of seeds. She said plants only grows knee high like a round bush with 100s of green peanut size peppers that turn, yellow, orange, red, purple, color. Peppers are very hot like Tabasco and very beautiful like colorful flower bushes. She was right pepper plants were very beautiful and peppers were extremely hot. I like it the plants stayed small and they were beautiful. I never knew the name and never seen them is seed magazines?

When you say “peanut” size, do you mean the shelled or unshelled?

Bolivian Rainbow peppers are shelled peanut size and no more than 18” to 24” plant size:

applestar wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 23, 2015 9:16 am

You are welcome Good luck and keep us posted.

Here's one of the varieties that I particularly like for its decorative value: BOLIVIAN RAINBOW

The plant itself has dark green antho foliage/purple stems, and the pods start out purple, then turn ivory, yellow, orange, and finally red.

The bottom point is sweet when red as it can get and tastes like ordinary sweet pepper -- slightly grassy -- but it's hot near the seeds. I think they "taste like hot peppers" and probably no hotter than jalapeños, but am not experienced enough in the fine distinction between the pepper flavors to say good or mediocre. I've been using it for fermented pepper sauces and in any thing I want a little heat. (I have read reviews that say flavor is "meh" by pepper experts though )



...I have to note that mine has pointier pods than I see in some pictures on-line. It's possible mine had crossed with something in previous generations and is NOT true to type.

There are some small plants that don't need staking, like Superchili, which is short variety, that clings to the ground. If listed as 12 to 18 inches, you might be able to skip staking, but not definitely. I've had some small habanero types that spread out, rather than growing up - Gold Bullets was one. All my others, however, I have to stake, except the Superchili. Even the Thai peppers, due to the number of small peppers that come all at once, need to be staked. This season I had a few pulled over early, due to a wind storm - the Aji Dulce was the only one killed. I just have to put a stake in early, then a clip, or a velcro strip, and move it, as it grows.

I also have not seen peppers starting out red! I've had them ripen red, yellow, orange, and cream color, but none started red!

As I mentioned Bolivian Rainbow pepper I was growing was narrower and pointed (it was from saved traded seeds), but images online are more rounded and some entirely without points. Size of fruits is small like you described.

So it’s gotten closer to what you are looking for by a couple more factors.

It’s small enough to grow in containers and overwintered reliably for me, very prolific production so it can keep you supplied all year… and it’s very pretty.

Going back to the original question —

Turning red all at once could be a product of hybridization to create determinate variety for specific purpose of early red maturing sweet peppers which has higher market value. And “all at once” makes it easier to harvest for mass processing for market. (And to free up the rows for starting the next succession crop.)


…About staking…
Here’s a possible scenario — Japanese farmers’ (and presumably other Asian growers) method:

If you stake the plants in the beginning and prune to main stem + first two pairs of branches (4 main scaffold branches), then the upper pepper growths can be supported with hoops at approx. 3 ft intervals along the row and surveyor’s tape type (they use 1” wide filmy polypropylene packing tape that seems common but I don’t see very often here) that are tightly secured from hoop to hoop at shoulders and two or three more locations acrosss the arching top.

Peppers continue to grow through the tapes and the branches are supported by the tapes as they start to lean.

Main trunk and the scaffold branches as well as the subsequent lower branches harden and become semi-woody, so they no longer need the lower support stakes.

As they grow, branches growing toward the center of the plant are pruned so that they maintain open-centered somewhat vase-shape. They are also pruned for shape so new side branches don’t stick out into the paths — all become apparently exactly the same height and width.

When they are fully leafed out, you can’t see the hoops and the tapes. (except the hoop legs from the side) as you These if they are grown to fully mature red fruits would fit the description?


— He’s saying do the pruning task in the video before mid-August, before the hurricane season starts.
— remove pruned leaves, etc. from mulch to directly on the soil between the rows, and — give supplemental fertilizer (he uses 8-8-8 and dolomitic lime) along the shoulder of the row near outer root zone
— lightly cultivate surface of soil after spreading fertilizer to activate breakdown and oxygenate soil especially if packed down due to rain

Yes, many peppers are "determinate", though we never see that reference in catalogs (at least I don't - maybe commercial growers do). But this doesn't necessarily mean they are hybrids; in fact, the ones I see that are determinate are more OP than hybrid, but then, I don't grow as many hybrids. Some peppers I prefer when they are determinate, so I can get a large number ripening at once, to dry or freeze, or harvesting them full size, but green, and freezing them. But with things like habaneros, and others I use throughout the summer, I like to use indeterminate types, if I can.

Bell peppers for me are determinate and for the most part very short lived. The frutescens chilies are the most erect and don't need staking. In my climate they can live for years so they are not short. Mine will grow to be about 4-5 ft tall. I had one that was 8 ft tall but it was growing between two lemon trees. The peppers are small. The pepper load is over 200. This inclusdes a lot of wild species called bird peppers. The chinense includes peppers like habanero. Mine never get that big. They have a pepper load of about 20 but they do ripen all at the same time. Because the peppers are larger, they are heavier so sometimes the plant does need support. The one I have now is short and bushy so it has been able to support the peppers without a stake. Bell peppers need either to lean against another plant or need staking.

I have gotten a few Thai peppers. And those are the luck of the draw since there is no one Thai pepper. The one I like grows less than a foot and has 1/4 inch peppers that are very hot. I have gotten seeds from rare seeds, Burpee, and other places labeled Thai pepper and they have been different with the same name. I grow mostly super chilies because they are hot, prolific, and the birds can't eat them all even without protection. They don't ripen all at once, but it usually does not need staking. It is long lived for me so it will get tall. If I grow Hawaiian chili which look very similar but are slightly smaller, the birds will only leave caps if it is not caged.