Striped Chocolate Peppers - the hunt is on
 

When I was planting my Capsicum patch I was thinking more about setting it up for over-wintering in the ground. Capsicums will survive our winters as long as we do not get any really hard frosts. If they are covered by a frame and plastic or a tarp overnight they will do quite well. I wound up planting a punnet of Red Californian Wonders at one end of the patch, followed by a Candy Cane and two Chocolate Capsicums, Last was a Sweet Yellow bulls horn type capsicum that ripens from yellow to orange and finally red. I had no real interest in setting anything up for seed saving at that point in time.

Since then I have learnt that Capsicums can out cross more readily that tomatoes and the possibility that I may have some Chocolates x Stripes has occurred to me. To that end I have saved seed from two chocolate caps and three or four Candy Canes, the possibility of crosses between the two and Cal Wonder, the standard supermarket red, cannot be ignored either and seed from the Cal Wonder plants closest to Candy Cane will be saved as they ripen. My main interest at this point in time, and knowing nothing about capsicum genetics, is to see if I have been lucky enough to get a chocolate x Candy cane cross. I think this will be most easily detected from the Chocolate side and should show up early as Candy Cane is also variegated and any variegation in a chocolate seed would indicate a cross.

MdTNGrdner has already offered to join in the hunt and if anyone else is interested in joining in the hunt you are most welcome.

what we started with: Candy cane on top, Chocolate below