Male peppers vs female pepper, saving seeds.

[Gary350]

Male peppers are suppose to have a stronger flavor & better for cooking than female peppers.

Female peppers are suppose to be sweeter & better raw than male peppers.

When saving seeds is there any advanced to save seeds from female peppers vs male peppers?

Will seeds from female peppers grow more female peppers than male peppers?

If all pepper plants in the garden are grown from seeds from female peppers will plants produce more female peppers?

[PaulF]

Sorry to say but this is complete myth. Peppers do not have gender and the number of lobes is due to variety and sweetness the same. Look up pepper gender and every reliable source says the same thing...myth. How this started is lost in the vapors of the net. Somehow this myth continues after several years of being debunked.

[Gary350]

Sorry to say but this is complete myth. Peppers do not have gender and the number of lobes is due to variety and sweetness the same. Look up pepper gender and every reliable source says the same thing...myth. How this started is lost in the vapors of the net. Somehow this myth continues after several years of being debunked.

The internet is full of FAKE information. Glad to know its fake news.

1 more question. Is it true seeds from a green pepper will not germinate? Seeds from a mature red pepper will germinate?

[dveg]

Gardening is full of silly myths, and it is interesting how such myths propagate. The internet is a powerful mechanism for propagating myths, because information goes from one website to another website without passing through any rational minds. You see loads of websites that are virtual copies of other websites. In this respect, the internet is functionally a copy machine, rather than an information machine.

[pepperhead212]

There is a similar myth about sex of hot peppers, and the 4 lobed "female" hot peppers being hotter. This is only because there is another vein inside those peppers.

I never tried to save seeds from a green pepper, so I can't answer that one. Maybe something hormonal happens when fruits ripen, that is necessary for viable seeds?

[PaulF]

I don't save peppers seeds because they tend to cross very easily and I am too lazy to bag blossoms. I do have a couple of hard to find varieties that next year I want to give a shot to saving the seeds from. So your question is a good one. So far the few sites that give an answer seem to be saying the pepper needs to be ripe or mature for viable seeds.

Lots of places say how and when to plant and how to save seeds but don't answer the question about seed viability. I think I will bag the entire plant even though they are self pollenating and maybe give them a little help with the process. Then I will allow the peppers to completely mature before saving seeds.

[imafan26]

Pepper and the solanaceous family in general have perfect flowers and are hermaphrodites. Totally capable of self or cross pollinating.

I know people get peppers crossed and I have seen some pepper hybrids. I grow many different varieties of peppers side by side and I guess, it has just has not happened yet. I do usually pick my peppers in the green state or the birds will pick them ripe for me so I guess that may be why I don't get a lot of crosses. This year, I have a lot of ripe peppers on the bush so maybe some will cross at some point.

[TomatoNut95]

Lol, yeah I was gonna say there is no such thing as a 'male' and 'female' peppers. Pepper blossoms are self-polinating like tomatoes, which means both male and female parts are within one blossom. There are male and female blossoms on other stuff like cucumbers, squash. But even so, the fruits produced aren't specified as male or female produce.