What type of chili am I growing?
By Al_x
London, United Kingdom
Hi to all helpful horticulturists!
I bought some Ghost chili seeds from Amazon, or so I thought. These fruits don't look anything like ghost chillies to me.
The cone shape looks more like a capsicum annuuum member. I'm confused...
Anyone has any ideas of what it could be?
- 4 Sep, 2015
Answers
That could very well be the case. I've looked at pics and it is very much like those, but without the colour... Yet!
4 Sep, 2015
certainly have the typical chilli shape. The ones I grow are medium heat ones and look just like these green ones.
5 Sep, 2015
I was just researching the taxonomy of chilis. Far different from the last time I looked (twenty years ago?! Nah, I cant be that old! :D) when practically all were considered varieties of C. annua. DNA analysis has made a huge difference!
5 Sep, 2015
Thanks for the replies.
Seaburngirl: That is what I was starting to realize. I wanted super hot chillies :-(
Oh well, next year. Maybe I'm better off buying chillies and saving the seeds. At least that way I know I'm getting what's on the label...
6 Sep, 2015
well if you buy a ghost chilli and it is a named hybrid the seeds will not come true but it will be close to the species, but it may not be as hot as the ones you bought.
6 Sep, 2015
Not a modern hybrid, Sbg, but an old Indian landrace derived from a natural hybrid between C. chinense (Habanero & kin) and C. frutescens (Tabasco & kin).
Al, the problem with saving seeds from store-bought fruits is that you never know what kind of pepper they were growing next to on the farm. You might wind up with a cross with an Anaheim type! :)
8 Sep, 2015
so do they come true from seed as it is still a hybrid? your point was the one that I was making really; no certainty what you will get as an end result.
10 Sep, 2015
To make a long story short:
The actual hybridization occurred centuries ago. Since then, it has undergone many generations of selective breeding to enhance the characters that the Indian small farmers wanted, and is now genetically consistent enough to come true from seed. Almost every standard variety of produce on the market started out as a hybrid of some kind--often unintentional--and has since been bred into consistency.
11 Sep, 2015
It looks like it may be a Chile de Arbol.
4 Sep, 2015