Big Bertha/Red Knight cross-pollination
I have a few questions for you experts. For the past couple of years, I've kept a small container garden, consisting of a few Red Knight and Big Bertha plants. Last year, a strange pepper appeared on a Big Bertha plant next to a Red Knight. I'm in Minnesota and don't have the best sun, so I don't get huge peppers, but this pepper was shaped like the Red Knights but was about twice their size! It was a Bell type pepper, growing on a Big Bertha plant, right along with Big Bertha peppers. I kept the seeds and planted them this winter. I now have neat little plants coming up! Question1- Will these plants likely produce peppers? Question 2- If so, what type of peppers will they likely produce?
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applestar
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Since both Big Bertha and Red Knight are hybrids, your new type will hopefully be an accidental cross of these two varieties (off chance the stray pollen was brought in from elsewhere).
Last year’s odd fruit would likely be the first cross / hybrid — an F1, so if you are growing seeds saved from that fruit, this year’s plants/fruits will be F2 (tentatively).
F2 is when interesting genetic traits start to show up in the segregates so it’s a good idea to start extra plants to compare their growth habits and fruits. Then you can select for best characteristics.
— you might look for early maturity like the Red Knight, or for size like Big Bertha… or for flavor, Red Knight’s disease resistance, etc.
If you want these traits to become consistent, you will need to save seeds from each particular fruits and grow subsequent generations each year to pursue the segregate line. The desired traits may appear in other segregates as well and allow you to narrow down which line to pursue.
The usual consensus is that the segregate line most likely will have become mostly stable by F9 generation and can be considered “completely” stable by F11 or F12.
…so how many of these F2’s are you growing?
Last year’s odd fruit would likely be the first cross / hybrid — an F1, so if you are growing seeds saved from that fruit, this year’s plants/fruits will be F2 (tentatively).
F2 is when interesting genetic traits start to show up in the segregates so it’s a good idea to start extra plants to compare their growth habits and fruits. Then you can select for best characteristics.
— you might look for early maturity like the Red Knight, or for size like Big Bertha… or for flavor, Red Knight’s disease resistance, etc.
If you want these traits to become consistent, you will need to save seeds from each particular fruits and grow subsequent generations each year to pursue the segregate line. The desired traits may appear in other segregates as well and allow you to narrow down which line to pursue.
The usual consensus is that the segregate line most likely will have become mostly stable by F9 generation and can be considered “completely” stable by F11 or F12.
…so how many of these F2’s are you growing?
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applestar
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You might find this simple explainer helpful in visualizing — this was about tomatoes but the basic principles are the same (…oh darn it! this is not a secure https site so I can’t create a link. It’s a really good representation though…)
Tomato Gene Basics
(in an eggshell)
www.kdcomm.net/~tomato/gene/genes.html
FYI — I have been posting about my tomato cross-breeding adventures here
Learning • Practicing to Cross Breed Tomato Varieties - HelpfulGardener.com
Tomato Gene Basics
(in an eggshell)
www.kdcomm.net/~tomato/gene/genes.html
FYI — I have been posting about my tomato cross-breeding adventures here
Learning • Practicing to Cross Breed Tomato Varieties - HelpfulGardener.com
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applestar
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- Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)
Ha! I thought of something else …. One more possibility I should mention —
Your pepper *could* also have been a double/ conjoined twin — a resulting fruit from a mega bloom / fasciated blossoms and not a result of genetic cross breeding. — It would have been an environmentally produced one off.
Big Bertha being elongated pepper with loosely 3 lobes, if developed on a megabloom, could potentially end up with 4 distinct lobes like a bell pepper.
Crazy tomato blossom? - HelpfulGardener.com
Was this the ONLY fruit of this size on the plant?
— Again, could have been a one-off. BUT sometimes by growing resulting seeds and subsequent generations of megabloom fruits, you can genetically encourage/strengthen the tendency to form them. — In this case, you would be de-hybridizing Big Bertha into an OP variety after achieving stability.
Your pepper *could* also have been a double/ conjoined twin — a resulting fruit from a mega bloom / fasciated blossoms and not a result of genetic cross breeding. — It would have been an environmentally produced one off.
Big Bertha being elongated pepper with loosely 3 lobes, if developed on a megabloom, could potentially end up with 4 distinct lobes like a bell pepper.
Crazy tomato blossom? - HelpfulGardener.com
Was this the ONLY fruit of this size on the plant?
— Again, could have been a one-off. BUT sometimes by growing resulting seeds and subsequent generations of megabloom fruits, you can genetically encourage/strengthen the tendency to form them. — In this case, you would be de-hybridizing Big Bertha into an OP variety after achieving stability.
Applestar- Your replies are interesting to me! The new specimen has 4 lobes, and one lobe is slightly longer than the others. It might not be a cross-pollination situation. It did seem to mature early, like my Red Knights. It tasted great! That's why I decided to see what would come of plants from it. I have 10 seedlings growing in the cold window. It's below freezing here in the mornings. I'm going to try to post a photo. It's not a huge pepper, but it's huge compared to what I usually get. Here it is next to the Big Bertha that grew with it.
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webmaster
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That's not the correct URL for displaying the image outside of Facebook.
Here's how to do it:
1. Navigate to the above Facebook URL your listed in your post.
2. Right click the image and choose something like "Open Image in New Tab"
3. The resulting URL is the one you need to copy and use for displaying here.
The image below is from Facebook, I got it to display by using the above method.
Applestar- Since squirrels destroyed one of only three hybrid plants I had, it was looking bleak. So, I decided to grow one Red Knight and one Big Bertha, along with my two remaining hybrids but well away from them. The two hybrid plants suddenly took off and bloomed well before the Red Knight and Big Bertha, so I knew any peppers that appeared would not be from pollination from the the Red Knight or Big Bertha. Anyway, my hybrids seem to be early bloomers, like last year's Red Knights! So far, they're looking as nice or nicer than the Big Bertha or Red Knight plant! I'll gather more data and keep you up on progress. I also have a dozen small hybrid plants now growing that might have time to produce fruit this season.
Sorry it's been awhile since I last checked in. The F2 peppers were sort of a bust. I was hoping to get large bell-shaped peppers from the Big Bertha/Red Knight hybrids. I got one such pepper, the first pepper to come out on any of the plants. It was a beauty and the seeds went into this season's F3 plants. However, nearly all the other peppers, from the F2s, looked like Big Berthas. So, I have to wait and see what I get this year, but it looks like Big Berthas might dominate.
"Life is like a bowl of chocolates. You never know what you will get", Forest Gump.
It takes breeders years to refine a cross. Out of hundreds of crosses, they only pick the ones that have the traits they want. because the hybrids will only express some of the parents genes, you have to grow out multiple generations, selecting for the genes that you want and most crosses will become more stable by the 10th generation. Sometimes, you get a cross that has only some of the traits you want but lost traits as well. In that case sometimes breeders with breed back to an original parent or another OP variety with the desired trait and then further refine. That is why conventional breeding can easily take 8-10 years to refine. Consider it a hobby and have patience, you may get lucky again. Since you started with 2 hybrids in the first place, you have more genetic variability than starting with an OP.
I have grown peppers for years next to each other, but I have yet to get a natural cross. I don't breed peppers because most of my peppers are hybrids that I buy for their particular traits, namely disease and heat resistance. If my super chili were to cross with the Hawaiian chili. I would not really know unless the bulbuls started eating super chili. Super chili is not as hot as a Hawaiian chili, but it is quite hot about 50,000 SHU. It looks similar but is larger. I prefer it because it is big enough for the bulbuls to leave it alone. A Hawaiian chili would have to be grown in a cage to exclude the birds. Otherwise, I would only have caps and no peppers. I have kept some hybrids' seed, but my hybrids that I kept seed from are adapted to my climate and they are very stable after 5 generations. I don't save seeds from most of the bells. I have an easier time growing hot peppers and they have a higher trade value. Thai peppers at the store cost about $36 per pound. Jalapenos cost $3 a pound. If anyone asks me if I grow Jalapenos. I tell them, it is not my favorite pepper. In terms of yield and stability Jalapenos are not my cup of tea. I do grow a local Jalapeno called Waialua and it is very stable so I don't get a wide variation in heat that I get with Jalapeno M which wasn't even hot and heat varied from pepper to pepper on the same plant. Thai peppers are about 80K SHU, Waialua is about 4000 SHU.
If you want to deliberately venture into breeding. You may want to start with two OP varieties with traits that you want for less variability.
It takes breeders years to refine a cross. Out of hundreds of crosses, they only pick the ones that have the traits they want. because the hybrids will only express some of the parents genes, you have to grow out multiple generations, selecting for the genes that you want and most crosses will become more stable by the 10th generation. Sometimes, you get a cross that has only some of the traits you want but lost traits as well. In that case sometimes breeders with breed back to an original parent or another OP variety with the desired trait and then further refine. That is why conventional breeding can easily take 8-10 years to refine. Consider it a hobby and have patience, you may get lucky again. Since you started with 2 hybrids in the first place, you have more genetic variability than starting with an OP.
I have grown peppers for years next to each other, but I have yet to get a natural cross. I don't breed peppers because most of my peppers are hybrids that I buy for their particular traits, namely disease and heat resistance. If my super chili were to cross with the Hawaiian chili. I would not really know unless the bulbuls started eating super chili. Super chili is not as hot as a Hawaiian chili, but it is quite hot about 50,000 SHU. It looks similar but is larger. I prefer it because it is big enough for the bulbuls to leave it alone. A Hawaiian chili would have to be grown in a cage to exclude the birds. Otherwise, I would only have caps and no peppers. I have kept some hybrids' seed, but my hybrids that I kept seed from are adapted to my climate and they are very stable after 5 generations. I don't save seeds from most of the bells. I have an easier time growing hot peppers and they have a higher trade value. Thai peppers at the store cost about $36 per pound. Jalapenos cost $3 a pound. If anyone asks me if I grow Jalapenos. I tell them, it is not my favorite pepper. In terms of yield and stability Jalapenos are not my cup of tea. I do grow a local Jalapeno called Waialua and it is very stable so I don't get a wide variation in heat that I get with Jalapeno M which wasn't even hot and heat varied from pepper to pepper on the same plant. Thai peppers are about 80K SHU, Waialua is about 4000 SHU.
If you want to deliberately venture into breeding. You may want to start with two OP varieties with traits that you want for less variability.