Re: [CH] yatsufusa
Dave Anderson (chilehead@tough-love.com)
Tue, 01 Apr 2003 22:55:13 -0800
> > Unfortunately this spring, this variety became commercially extinct
> > in Japan. If you liked this variety and want to grow it in the
> > future, start saving your seeds, until a seed company starts picking
> > it up and reproduces the seed commercially again. Otherwise,
> > Yatsufusa will go the way that the other Japanese hot peppers did in
> > the 1980s, like Hontaka and Santaka, into commercial seed
> > extinction.
>
> Why is this? Are seeds of any hot chiles being commercially
> propagated in Japan nowadays? Or is the Japan market small enough
> they are now satisfied to just use seeds of common ordinary chile
> varieties imported from USA or wherever?
> --- Brent
Hi Brent and everyone else:
I 'm always on the lookout for new seed varieties to offer and I'm convinced that
Asia has basically abandoned older Open Pollinated varieties and gone Hybrid. I
have a beautiful seed catalog from Tokita Seed Co Ltd of Nakagawa Japan and of
the 11 varieties listed, 10 are F1 hybrids. The one open pollinated variety is
Santaka. The catalog is a couple of years old, so I don't know if Tokita still offers
Santaka. The english version of their web site only mentions varieties of a couple of
other veggies. I do have a source for Santaka and offer it at my web site.
I've run into the same problem trying to find OP varieties in China and India. While I
don't have an objection to F1 hybrids and even offer a few varieties, I've always
been a fan of people being able to save their own seeds. The other problems with
hybrid varieties is that they often aren't around for very long unless they sell
extremely well and of course they cost about 100 times more than OP varieties. I'm
extremely concerned about the possibility of Genetic Modification of Peppers. While
I'm not aware that it's been done, it's certainly in the mission statements of a lot of
big seed companies.
Dave Anderson
TLCC
http://www.tough-love.com