Hi

John - That flower looks more like what I am seeing from this exile than those of the chacoenses from last year?

Just a couple more pics, this time of the Putapario from 2005.




This years exile has a few double flowers to a node but not a lot of them are staying on the plant for the moment. A lot of flowers drop from too much heat in the indoor quarters!! Now that it is outside in the tunnel thing this should improve...it did the trick for the others last year.

I will try and get a few more pics of that and the plant as it is now, (the photo in the other post was taken about three weeks ago ) during this week.

All the best

Guy

Hi

I finally got a few pics..need better, but will have to do for now. I seem to be growing the same seeds as John....I am guessing by his code that its from the same source mine? :-)

The plant is a bit on the lanky side to say the least, the fisrt photo was at 100 days from seed sowing.




The flowers look very similar to the chacoenses I had last year. Heres one of the chacos 2005.




And a flower from this years C.exile. I really like the flowers, similar to the chacoense above but the petals are fatter and more oval/heart shaped with a point.



One of the five pods set so far indoors with no insects. This one is a little more rounded at the tip than some of its siblings, the others are more pointed.



I guess its not Cobincho as it has the long calyx teeth as you can see. Though I can see a little difference in the flowers, the way the plant has grown is very much like the two 2005 chacoenses I had (the Putapario and the unamed chaco in the photo above). I will add ripe pod photos when they arrive!! Looking forward to a spot of testing (and seed collecting of course Chris..LOL)

Having fun with it whatever it is!!

All the best

Guy

Hi

I grew two different chacoenses last year and although I thought the Putapario lacked flavor, the other is simply top...great on goats cheese, lightly toasted on a hunk of french bread (lucky me its all I can get..LOL).

Unfortunately, I cant be precise about this second chacoense, as the seeds were simply labelled as "small unknown chacoense" and came from a seed exchange.

I must get images up into my photobucket album and post a few.

I also have an exile growing now that has a few fruit on it and plenty of flowers..it seems to be doing quite well in its current 13cm pot but is getting quite big now so will get moved up soon) I have yet to do any clear photos of that and will try to get some tomorrow so I can post images of all three chacoenses I have grown..I would be very interested in any comments.

All the best

Guy

Hi Chris

I have some flexuosum seeds but they are yellowish white...I also was told they should be brown. None germinated either but I will be trying them again...I checked the packet and the is an X on it, so I guess that the flex was crossed...so I too would be very interested to get my hands on some true flexuosum seeds...amongst others..LOL.

I have one plant each of Exile and Eximium growing and the Exile is flowering..saw the first baby pods yesterday..so I will keep the first few pods for you, they are not isolated but there are no other flowering plants in with it so they should be true. I do have a couple of pubescens that are about to open flowers and a Lucifers Dream Yellow that has just started producing pods too..but in another batch.

Best of luck with the search

Guy

Hi

I noticed the smell thing going on with my Tepins last year, very fragrant!! The galapagoense did not however, like Riccardos..not surprisingly really, as the seeds came from Riccardo. I noticed a very faint smell on the Manzano leaves too but much less pronounced than the tepins.

This year I have a lot more Pubescens than last year and have been pleasantly surprised by the fragrance of some of them. I just wish the chinenses smelled as good as they taste..;but I suppose you cant have everything.

Happy sniffing

Guy

Hi

As some of you will already know the association Kokopelli - formerly Terres et Semences - based in Ales in the south of France, has been taken to court for distributing seeds that do not appear on the EU and French allowed seeds lists.

The pepper seeds allowed for sale/exchange and sowing/growing in France and Europe are highly regulated and largely dominated by F1 hybrids. You may not be aware of this, but we are not really allowed to exchange or grow the vast majority of the varieties that we grow or would like to!

Anyway, Kokopelli have been campaigning for years to preserve the wealth and diversity of seed stocks of a wide range of garden vegatables (including a lot of chiles). They also sell a superb range of uncommon and traditional vegetable varieties, that do not appear on the official lists and in conjunction with a network of happy gardeners, seek to preserve and protect such varieties, that as a consequence of legislation risk disappearance.

Recently another seed selling firm in France (Baumaux Graines) has attacked Kokopelli in court, for their sales of non authorised seeds. Their action and the current legislation in this area threaten to have huge consequences for biodiversity and the future supply of seeds and veg for all of us.

So Kokopelli have started a petition that will be used in their defence and to demand changes to the ways in which varieties are chosen for inclusion on the lists. At present registration of a variety is very expensive and only really affordable for large commercial seed suppliers, who as a consequence, corner the market even futher with mainly hybrids and even the odd dreaded GM seeds.

I feel that things really need to change in this field and felt that it would be useful to bring to your attention the situation and provide a link to the petition and the background info on the trial....unfortunately the pages about the trial and the petition are only available in french....but a some background info on the activities of this association are available on the english version of the site...which is under construction.

If, like me you feel it is important to protect

1) Our right to grow the varieties that we want to.

2) The genetic heritage of the richly diverse plants, we humans have adapted and bred to feed ourselves.

Please take the time to look at the petition and sign it.

The court case (french) http://www.kokopelli.asso.fr/actu/new_news.cgi?id_news=57

The Petition - Free the Seed(french)
http://www.univers-nature.com/signez/?code=cat

Kokopelli in English
http://www.kokopelli-seeds.com/

Sorry for ranting, but I feel this is important...

All the best

Guy

Hi thietavu

Thats all very interesting. I guessed that the long hours of light in summer you get up there might be quite nice for some chile growing!

The flexuosum sounds interesting, do you know much about the original collection sites for this species? I ask because, I have been searching for such information on another species (C. tovarii) and discovered that they live in the wild in an area that has a weird temperature regime. Daily temperatures avg 20-25°C days and 5-10°C nights....pretty constantly all year round. In addition there is a permanent risk of frost!

Perhaps the flexuosum have a similar sort of habitat, or do you know what sort of tropical climate it comes from?

It would be really fascinating to get a little further behind the information on the CGN or GRIN etc... databases. its all very well getting a reference to a collection and sometimes the gross location of original collection but what would be the most enlightening the actual habitats is sorely missing.
It could help explain certain observed phenomena in chiles grown far from their original location and under varying environmental conditions.

I am finding some rocotos, tepins, cobanero, two chacoenses and a galapagoense even are seemingly doing quite well in the cellar overwinter. The tepin still has all its leaves...very robust. Got nothing in bloom though... :cry: The praetemissium seems to have faired less well though as have most chinenses..but heck hoping to have a few pull through.:wink:

All the best with Aji Perkele

Guy

Hi Jennifer

More Craziness!!

Reimers have been selling suicide seeds for years - they are supposedly healthy when they leave their hands but suicide when in contact with postal services!

Vive le Confederation Paysanne!

All the best

Guy

Hi

thietavu - If you develop a plant to grow wild in Finland then my hat would very definately off to you!!!!...LOL

Problem is how can you "develop" a wild plant to be wild....seems to challenge a few definitions to me. If you are developing or even cultivating a wild species, can it really be considered wild. You could create a land race that grows spontaneously in its environment perhaps but any divergence from the wild genetics would seem to me to make it a domesticate.

If you could develop a domesticate that grew spontaneously then you would be on your way but how long would it have to continue to do so before it could be considered as a domesticate thats gone wild.

Interesting idea though, then you could share seeds with southerners with the instructions to germinate the seeds in the freezer...LOL

Sounds like you have a lot of fun those long cold winter days and nights up there in the North

All the best

Guy

Hi

Yes indeed....Chocolate Congo Brown Black Habanero...pick a few terms and rearrange as you like!

One problem is those peppers that people get without a real name/or just do not know. When they want to share the good they need to call it something and usually make it up as they go along.

In a lot of such cases perhaps Unnamed chinense (or whatever) from x y or z would probably be a more reasonable way of going about it with unidentified vars...not to mention the use of NOT x y or z for those plants that turn out not to be what you thought they were, as John has suggested elsewhere.

I used to call the Landais/Aquitaine, Aussou as that is the name of the hamlet where I got the original seed from. The fact is however that the variety is called Landais in the Landes and Aquitaine elsewhere in Aquitaine (Landes being in Aquitaine), so I trade seeds under the name Landais/Aquitaine, cos both names are the traditional names for the same variety depending on where you are in the region. The names are also used interchangeably outside of Aquitaine....no wonder the french say that they have a word for everything...they usually have two or three...but I digress.

Another part of the problem is that a lot of amateur growers are just that and have no real interest in classification and cataloguing. They can not reasonably be expected to take much trouble with researching such info...which I personally do not hold against them...this chile growing mania is just fun for the majority.

I must say that I was very pleased to get a link to this site the other day..thanks Jennifer. The wealth of information and quality of images is just great...my hat is off to all concerned. I look forward to regularly checking in to see what is happening here. Now I just need to learn Finnish!!!! Ouch!

All the best

Guy