Can hot peppers make sweet peppers hot

[PureHarvest]

Sorry if this topic was discussed in the past. The search feature frustrates me here.

Basically I have read elsewhere lots of comments arguing both sides whether or not a hot pepper can make a sweet pepper taste hot in this year's fruit (not next year's accidental F1 being grown out and resulting in a hot bell for example.)

I know field corn can pollinate a sweet corn and this year's harvest won't be sweet, so...
What do you say?

[FarmerShawn]

I say no, they cannot affect the fruit that way in the first year. If they cross pollinate and you save the seeds, then for plants grown from those seeds, all bets are off. Corn is a different thing, though, being a grain rather than a fruiting plant.

[PureHarvest]

Hmmm, I'm trying to noodle the corn thought...

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by PureHarvest

Hmmm, I'm trying to noodle the corn thought...

Okay lets look at it this way I have had this discussion before with people.
With peppers it wont.
Now with corn you are eating the seeds not the fruit there is no fruit.
The seeds have changed.
To make it even more interesting not all of the corn seeds have to be pollinated from the same pollen donor.
If the corn has 100 kernels on it it can have 100 different donors.


Worth

[Andrey_BY]

And I say YES about peppers. And have seen several times in my own garden in the first year knowing for sure all the seeds (both hot and sweet) were not cross pollinated before.

[PureHarvest]

That is what I have read.
The scientist in me says it can't happen.
But then my mind drifts to the corn example.
I have not had it happen, but I think sometimes we think we know all there is to know.
And we don't trust what we actually see and experience because the power of 'can't' in the back of our minds.

[PureHarvest]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Okay lets look at it this way I have had this discussion before with people.
With peppers it wont.
Now with corn you are eating the seeds not the fruit there is no fruit.
The seeds have changed.
To make it even more interesting not all of the corn seeds have to be pollinated from the same pollen donor.
If the corn has 100 kernels on it it can have 100 different donors.


Worth

With corn, we are eating seeds.
With fruit we are eating seeds that are encapsulated by a fleshy cover.

I'm still stuck on how the corn is different.
You have flowers, male and female parts. Pollination and seed formation.

[kurt]

I agree with Andrey above.It is happening as we speak.Crossbreeding and "pushing"the superhots and others is what keeps those HOT PEPPERPHILES alive.Bragging rights,pure solid health related studies,farmers,gardeners do it all the time to get the best plants,tastiest,and in this case Scoville Units.I have some superhots grown side by side and am just waiting for that hybrid/cross to appear.At up to $1.00 of the original seed of some of the Guinness World Record Holders I can see why.My brother in law in Pa is a superhot fanatic and "upgrades" his plants and swears by it.

[drew51]

Originally Posted by PureHarvest

Sorry if this topic was discussed in the past. The search feature frustrates me here.

Basically I have read elsewhere lots of comments arguing both sides whether or not a hot pepper can make a sweet pepper taste hot in this year's fruit (not next year's accidental F1 being grown out and resulting in a hot bell for example.)

I know field corn can pollinate a sweet corn and this year's harvest won't be sweet, so...
What do you say?

Not a fair comparison because corn is a seed and of course the seed can change. Peppers are fruits. so absolutely not! You can't change the genetics of an existing plant with pollen. It may taste hotter if you eat the seed inside the pepper, that explains why a sweet might taste hot. If crossed with a hot to form the fruit, the seeds would be hot! I guess some of that heat might be absorbed by the flesh of the fruit too. So maybe the answer isn't as clear as I thought?
I have grown both for years and never had a sweet taste hot, but I don't eat the seeds with them. Also if you handle both you could be making the sweets hot with your fingers spreading the oil. Again the plant though is making sweet flesh and always will, genetics cannot be changed.

With stone fruit often if watered a lot before harvest the brix can be lower so the fruit does not taste as sweet. I would suggest to limit water in sweet peppers a few weeks before harvest, and never harvest after a rain storm or watering.
I would suggest this for tomatoes you want to be sweet, limit watering before harvest!

[guruofgardens]

a hot pepper can make a sweet pepper taste hot in this year's fruit (not next year's accidental F1 being grown out and resulting in a hot bell, for example.)

I vote NOT. Not in this year's fruit.

[PureHarvest]

Just like other sites I have searched.
Seeing yeas and nays.
Maybe we should keep a running tally.
Some places the discussion was heated, almost to the level of GMO debating.
Hopefully we can just keep it light here.

[drew51]

Originally Posted by PureHarvest

Just like other sites I have searched.
Seeing yeas and nays.
Maybe we should keep a running tally.

Well people dream of the impossible and want to defy the law of physics and it's hard to their change minds despite the laws of nature and genetics.
All formally educated people in botany or horticulture will tell you the same answer every-time. I agree with them.

Texas A&M question 3
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/a...es/pepper.html

If you can show me a university paper saying otherwise I would love to see it (yeah none exist).

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/can-pla...her-40331.html

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/i...1033012AA89EUU

[PureHarvest]

I hear ya man, but there is so much more than we know.
I don't want to stray in that direction here.
Maybe not in horticulture and genetics, but "laws" in general are things I try to not believe in without questioning them.
Maybe that is me being a skeptic and that bleeding over into other stuff.
But there are folks that swear their sweet peppers got hot in the same year and eliminated the obvious reasons.
Not saying I believe, but their experience intrigues me.
Maybe i shouldn't have watched the 3 new X-Files episodes 👽

[PureHarvest]

"If you can show me a university paper saying otherwise I would love to see it (yeah none exist)."

Is there lead in your water drew?
But all the "official" documents said it was safe...
It's just a pepper discussion
I'm not sure why you got a little smug there.

[PureHarvest]

"All formally educated people in botany or horticulture will tell you the same answer every-time. I agree with them."

I find that elitist and arrogant.

Many of the formally educated people in botany and hort I know are very stuck in their own footprint and mindset and when they are hammers everything looks like a nail, if u get what I'm sayin'
Example: before u grow your crop, "test your soil and adjust ph to 6.5".
You see that in EVERY official university publication. It is so infuriating to the people that actually look beyond what the experts say. Then when you ask them, what is the base saturation of C and Mg are you recommending, they are lost.


Drew, maybe I'm reading u wrong and I'm over reacting. My apologies if so. Just didn't care for the tone and I tend to say what I feel.
I will drop it from here b/c in the short time I've been here, I see that this site is pretty much free of conflict and don't want to turn this into the comments section of YouTube or yahoo etc.