Albinism/Partial albinism and mutations in OP varieties

[Gazeofslate]

Hi,
A while ago I noticed that one of my seedlings had partially white leaves and thought I mixed up my seeds as my seedling was supposed to be a vezanka.
I initially thought that I had sowed fish pepper seeds instead, so I sowed a few more seeds when I noticed that.

Later I realized that the growing habits and particularly the leaf shape was different than on my fish pepper seedling. The leaves were much larger and droopier. The stem also started showing some purple streaks, and no way a fish pepper that's half albinos would produce so much anthocyanin, what's more the fish seedling didn't show any purple streaks.
And I definitely ruled this out when the seedling formed it's first pepper. From the shape and from the corking, this is definitely a vezanka piperki and not a fish pepper.

I never grew any of these varieties before but the vezanka surely isn't supposed to be half albinos, so that's troubling. I don't think it's crossed seeds either as I bought the seeds from commercial source (baker's creek), although I also have seeds from serbia and can't remember which one I sowed as I did it multiple times because they didn't germinate the first time around. Who knows why, they are the only ones that caused me so much difficulty to germinate. But anyway, I have a macedonian friend and discussed these vezanka piperki with her prior to growing these as they are traditionally grown in Macedonia and Serbia and from what she told me, these should be albinos but should indeed show some strong corking.

I'm baffled by this. Doesn't seems like crossed seeds, now could the fact that I also grow fish pepper close to them be a factor that could trigger albinism in this seedling ? Pure coincidence ? As far as I now, albinism and partial albinism are purely russian roulette on the great wheel of genetics and are defects, right ? Could it be that open pollinated varieties are more prone to mutation/less stable than hybrids ? I mention that because a few of my tomatoes have been putting out fused blooms and another of my pepper plant keeps cracking out pods that are all different from each others and no two looks alike.

Any ideas ?

The first pictures are pictures of my vezanka seedling and the last picture is a picture of the fish seedling, as you can see the leaves exhibit the same kind of white/see-through streaks and both show variegation. I don't think it's stress either as I'm growing them indoors.

[carolyn137]

Here are a couple of peppers where the varigation is stable

http://www.southernexposure.com/pepp...-3_43_125.html

Check out Joe's Round and Royal Black, and yes,that's me who sent them to SASE.

In the past there are many who have shown pictures of what they thought was variegated foliage, but it turned out it was just low flying birds who were pooping.

I don 't know enough pepper genetics to speculate on the transferability of genes for variegation.

Carolyn

[Gazeofslate]

Haven't seen a whole lot of birds flying indoors.
Thanks for the link by the way. I know that fish pepper is variegated and that it is stable, but what I meant to ask was more among the lines of is what happened to my vezanka seedling a genetic mutation ? And yes, I'd like to know if I could stabilize that trait and if it would reoccur in the next generation if I save seeds from this plant. My guess is that the albinism gene is probably recessive rather than dominant. That would mean that I would need two parents which both carry that gene for it to be expressed in the next generations, right ? Then I guess i could always try and hybridize it with the fish pepper and see what happens.
Still, it'd be pretty cool if I could just save seeds from the vezanka seedling and have a line of albinos/variegated vezanka peppers.
But, that's definitely not bird poop hah ! My fingers would have been a bit sticky from having rubbed that leaf... And that bird would have been a bit bold to do such a thing in my bedroom (which is located on the 7th story of a tall building !)

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Gazeofslate

Haven't seen a whole lot of birds flying indoors.
Thanks for the link by the way. I know that fish pepper is variegated and that it is stable, but what I meant to ask was more among the lines of is what happened to my vezanka seedling a genetic mutation ? And yes, I'd like to know if I could stabilize that trait and if it would reoccur in the next generation if I save seeds from this plant. My guess is that the albinism gene is probably recessive rather than dominant. That would mean that I would need two parents which both carry that gene for it to be expressed in the next generations, right ? Then I guess i could always try and hybridize it with the fish pepper and see what happens.
Still, it'd be pretty cool if I could just save seeds from the vezanka seedling and have a line of albinos/variegated vezanka peppers.
But, that's definitely not bird poop hah ! My fingers would have been a bit sticky from having rubbed that leaf... And that bird would have been a bit bold to do such a thing in my bedroom (which is located on the 7th story of a tall building !)

I agree that the albinism gene is probably recessive,so would only show up in the homozygous recessive state.

There's a similar situation with a tomato variety called Variegata or Variegated.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Variegated

There are much better pictures than what's shown at Tania's site,but the point I want to make is that there have been other variegated tomatoes,but one has to clone them to keep them going,this one is special since it's the only one that comes true from seed.

How true that might be with your pepper situation I don't know,but you might want to take cuttings of your
Vezanka plants until you find out whether it is transmitted via seed,or not.

And just how was I to know that the plants were in your bedroom 5 stories up?

Carolyn

[Gazeofslate]

You indeed had no way of knowing that !
They'd probably die if they were outside though due to our climate. A wet, soggy, cold climate. During the past two weeks we've either had a thick fog or downpours of rain.

Now I just noticed another strange thing... The fruit is turning black. It's not rotting it looks as if it was ripening but the vezanka is supposed to ripen to red, not black. Maybe it's just an intermediate stage, I have no idea !

Anyways, I've sent a few messages to Darren Abbey and he has been very helpful, explaining to me the various mechanisms of albinism and color in plants. Now, apparently the only real way to know is to have seeds and see what happens, so I'll do just that once the pepper is ripe to ensure seeds are fully viable.