Re: [CH] Rocoto help needed
Brent Thompson (brent@hplbct.hpl.hp.com)
Fri, 10 May 2002 10:27:55 -0700
> "Peppers of the World" states that blossoms MUST be pollinated by ANOTHER
> plant in order to bear fruit. Which means to me that another blossom on
> the same plant wouldn't do the job. I wonder why not?
False information. It may be true that _some_ C. pubescens plants are
self-incompatible, and maybe even true for a large percentage of them,
overall, worldwide. (And it is true that most plants of the very close
relative Capsicum cardenasii are self-incompatible, but even there not
_all_ plants are.) Regardless, over many years I have grown hundreds of
individual C. pubescens plants from seeds, of at least 10 unrelated
accessions, and many many of them have been in situations when a single
plant was the only one flowering (or even physically present), and all have
never failed to set fruit per normal -- modulo possibly requiring manual
pollenization if sufficient ants aren't roaming around, of course.
> Since I had intended to save seed am wondering if I could clone the red
> and the orange in order to have a second plant for pollinating next year?
> Or must it be a different plant from a different seed?
Self-incompatibility requires a genetically different individual, not
simply a physically separate one. Again, in all likelihood this will be
irrelevant for any of your rocoto plants, but YMMV. You might hit the
jackpot with an uncommon self-incompatible rocoto.
> "Peppers of the World" also says that 2 plants can be put in a single 9"
> pot. Does that sound OK to those of you that grow Rocotos in pots?
C. pubescens plants get big pretty fast, so hard to imagine a single one
being happily productive in a 9" pot -- not to mention not tipping over --
let alone two in there. And even with only one, you'd have to be doing
very frequent watering, though obviously this depends on temperature,
humidity, and wind conditions.
--- Brent