Crossing sweet peppers, some interesting genetics
 

I love the taste and crisp texture of Orange Bell peppers, but they have several seriously negative traits such as extremely brittle stems and relatively long season to maturity. It is a superb variety here in the south, but not very well adapted to the northern tier of states or to Canada.

Frank Morton gave me a few samples of his peppers when I visited Oregon in 2012 including Little Bells which is an early maturity but relatively thin walled red sweet pepper. I decided to try crossing Orange Bell X Little Bells when Frank asked specifically about developing an orange sweet pepper from the same breeding lines that led to Little Bells. I told him at the time that the genetics were not present and that he would need an outcross to an orange variety. Since then, he has brought out several yellow/gold lines which you can see at [URL]http://www.wildgardenseed.com/[/URL]

I interplanted Orange Bell and Little Bells plants in my garden in 2014, then saved seed only from the Orange Bell plants. This year, I grew the seed out and put about 30 plants in my garden. I got lucky, one single plant was a natural bee made cross! I saved seed from that plant and sent about 100 seed back to Frank in hopes he will grow it out and develop a short season orange sweet pepper adapted to his climate. I also saved enough seed to grow out next year and see what shows up here in North Alabama.

The F1 cross showed up with bright red fruits which indicates the gene involved in Orange Bell is actually the tangerine gene, not beta carotene. The F1 plant matured fruit at least 2 weeks prior to the pure Orange Bell plants set out at the same time. Fruit flavor was poorer than Orange Bell, less crispy, and fruit walls were thinner. I'm hoping segregation in the F2 will moderate some of these traits. I will target large thick walled sweet peppers on sturdy compact plants with early maturity and heavy production.

That's pretty exciting, I wish you the best of luck.

Little Bells look fairly prolific...
[IMG]https://www.wildgardenseed.com/images/LittleBellsPepper.jpg[/IMG]

I'm interested in finding bells that grow well in the north too, I really don't care about color. So I have been trying various varieties, although I'm just starting. I want a decent sweet, it doesn't have to even be a bell pepper. I have many from Europe I have yet to trial. This year the clear winner was Spanish Mammoth or Doux D' Espagne Sweet Pepper.
It produced a decent amount of peppers and the location was far from ideal being somewhat shaded. The peppers are thick and a very deep red. Beautiful peppers.
Yellow Mammoth was 2nd, but production was low coming on well late in the season. It currently has 8 peppers on it, but the season is just about over.
Oranges I have but yet to trial are
Etiuda Sweet Pepper - from England
White Cloud- Used when ivory in color, matures to a bright orange-red

Not many choices for orange!

Excellent! I have grown Orange Blaze and it is reliably and relatively early, but not much of a bell, more of a pendant shaped pepper and Yummi another small pendant shape, but late. way later than I want for my garden. They just started ripening and last night we got a frost BUMMER! I would love to see an earlier and tasty orange bell or pendant. Thanks for the effort and work.

[QUOTE=Fusion_power;509438]The F1 cross showed up with bright red fruits which indicates the gene involved in Orange Bell is actually the tangerine gene, not beta carotene.[/QUOTE]

The genetics of orange color in chiles is much more complicated than in tomatoes:
[LIST][*]There are three mutations in which mimic the beta carotene trait of tomatoes, two are recessive ([I][B]bc[/B][/I], [I][B]t[/B][/I]) and the third is dominant ([I][B]B[/B][/I]).[*]There is a recessive mutation ([I][B]c2[/B][/I]) which results in orange chiles. The same gene (Psy) mutated in tomatoes results in yellow (or white).[*]Then there is another recessive mutation ([I][B]y[/B][/I]) which by itself results in an orange chile, but in combination with [I][B]c2[/B][/I] results in a yellow chile.[/LIST]I've been researching chile color genetics for an upcoming blog post. There might be a mutation corresponding to the tangerine mutation of tomatoes, but I haven't come across any references to it.


A few maybe useful references:
[LIST][*]Orange caused by two different mechanisms: [URL="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2889374/"]www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2889374[/URL][*]Recessive orange caused by defect in Bch2 gene: [URL="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23124390"]www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23124390[/URL][*]Recessive orange caused by defect in Ccs gene: [URL="https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsbbs/54/1/54_1_33/_pdf"]www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsbbs/54/1/54_1_33/_pdf[/URL][*]Dominant orange color (patent): [URL="http://www.google.com/patents/US5440069"]www.google.com/patents/US5440069[/URL][*]Genes of Capsicum: [URL="http://www.chilepepperinstitute.org/content/files/Genes%20of%20Capsicum%281%29.pdf"]www.chilepepperinstitute.org/content/files/Genes%20of%20Capsicum%281%29.pdf[/URL][/LIST]