Many known pepper varieties are grown worldwide by farmers. Crossbreeding pepper plants of different varieties is a fairly easy task. If you wish to know more about this, then read on to find out how to crossbreed pepper plants.
With the appropriate knowledge, you can cross-breed two pepper varieties and generate a brand new desirable pepper offspring. Basically, people cross breed plants like pepper to generate a tasty, hot, or more aesthetically pleasing pepper hybrid.
In this post, we will be sharing amazing details on how to successfully cross-breed pepper plants to yield a more desirable pepper plant. So, let’s begin.
Cross Breeding Peppers
It is the desire of every gardener to have a bountiful and worthy harvest at the end of the growing season. One way to achieve this is by selecting some of the best parent plants and cross-breeding them to achieve more desirable offspring.
Crossbreeding pepper can become an easy and straightforward thing for you if you get the right knowledge. But also have in mind that crossbreeding takes time, dedication, and patience to get successful results.
When it comes to crossbreeding, the plants that are used in crossbreeding are referred to as the parent plants. Then the resulting pepper plant is regarded as the hybrid. Crossbreeding pepper plants implies that we interceding with the natural reproductive process of pepper plants.
Pepper plants are cross-bred thanks to the anatomy of their flowers. The flowers are responsible for the production of seed-bearing fruits. On a single pepper plant, you will find both male and female reproductive parts. Hence, this allows for self-pollination.
Important Note On How To Cross Breed Peppers
Firstly, you need to understand that peppers are capable of self-pollination. Under normal conditions, pepper plants will self-pollinate once the flower has been fertilized by compactable pollen. A bee buzzing around plants, a rush of wind, or even an ant can initiate the process of self-pollination.
It is important to prevent self-pollination from peppers since our goal is to crossbreed our desired traits. Therefore, we need to manipulate the pepper plant.
- This brings us to the process of emasculation. Since we don’t want the parent plants to self-pollinate, we need to carefully remove some reproductive parts. The male reproductive part is removed from the maternal (mother) pepper flower plant. The maternal parts are left alone because they are chosen to bear fruit.
So, let’s further look into guidelines on how to crossbreed pepper plants.
Guidelines On How To Cross Breed Pepper Plants
Here are the guidelines on how to breed peppers the right way:
1. Grow The Parent’s Plants
The main purpose of cross-breeding pepper is to combine two pepper varieties to produce the desired offspring. Therefore, obtain the seeds of the parent variety you wish to combine and grow them. Make sure the seeds are quality seeds to boost your chance of getting great results.
2. Locate The Flowers Before They Bloom To Emasculate Them
As we’ve mentioned, this process is very important. So, finding the parent flowers before they bloom and when they’re about to bloom means they are mature enough. They can be identified easily by their green outer petals or unfurled sepals.
3. Cut Or Remove All Bloomed Flowers
Cut down the bloom flowers to at least a quarter-inch down the stem and leave the unbloomed flowers. Ensure you use sharp scissors or tools and rub some alcohol on them and wear some new pair of latex gloves before you begin.
Once you’re done, clean the scissors with methylated spirit and throw away the gloves. Wear new gloves and move to the next plant and do the same.
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4. Reveal The Pistil Of The Unbloomed Flowers On One Of The Parent Pepper
This is done by peeling away the unbloomed petals carefully with sterilized tweezers. Wear a pair of gloves when doing this. Once you’ve done this correctly, you will see several stamens.
Once the stamen (male reproductive part) has been exposed, emasculate them with the help of small, sharp, and sterile scissors. The pistil (female reproductive part) is then exposed. Do not damage or touch this pistil as it will be responsible for bearing the resulting fruit.
Discard the stamen you got from the first parent flower and tie small strings around the stem of the flower.
5. Second Flower Stamen Harvesting
Move to the second pepper flower and wear a new pair of gloves. Just like you did to the first pepper plant, carefully harvest the stamen of the second flower.
6. Fertilize The First Pepper Plant Manually
From the harvested stem of the second plant, cut the stamen open carefully with the help of a dissecting needle. Then with the help of the needle’s tip, go ahead and scoop out the pollen inside.
Then apply the scooped pollen on the exposed pistil on the first pepper plant. Make sure the pollen is applied on the top part which is known as the stigma. Therefore, you have achieved manual pollination.
7. Observe The Manually Pollinated Flower
Once you’ve accomplished the manual pollination, watch the plant closely. If the manual pollination was successful, in about 3 or 4 days, the ovary which is located below the pistil will start to swell. This is a good sign of successful pollination. However, if the ovary refuses to swell, it means it was unsuccessful. This is usually caused by damage of pistil during emasculation. This is why you should be extra careful when clipping the stamens.
So, the successfully fertilized ovary will grow to become fruit. The resulting fruit and the seeds are referred to as a hybrid. So, if the fruits are exactly what you desired, their seeds can now be used to propagate your new crossbreed pepper plant species.
How To Cross Breed Pepper Plants: Final Say
Once you’ve successfully flowed our guiltiness on how to crossbreed pepper plants, cross-breeding your pepper variety should be easy. You can now make tastier or hotter pepper species than what is readily available in your region.
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Eunice is an enthusiastic gardener with a passion for growing beautiful flowers. She loves nothing more than spending time in her garden, tending to her plants and enjoying the outdoors. Eunice has been gardening for over 15 years and has developed a unique style of landscaping that is both practical and aesthetically pleasing. She is especially fond of growing roses and enjoys experimenting with different varieties and colors. Eunice takes great pride in her garden and often shares the fruits of her labor with friends and family. In her spare time, she enjoys reading gardening magazines and attending local horticulture events. Eunice is passionate about her hobby and is always eager to share her knowledge and experience with others.
