Chillies, Peppers, Tomatoes & Melon crazy 2019

[Scarlet]

The bottom of the plant is ok though? It's just been set back a bit. It will branch out lovely with its top pruned.
Unfortunately these hiccups happen while gardening.

[The Pepper Man]

I have no idea what can have caused the stem to snap like that, but just a word of warning that chillies are a bit tricky to take cuttings from. It absolutely can be done but they don't root as readily as other plants e.g. tomatoes.

Yeah, I found that out first hand last year when attempting to re-root a Jalapeno plant that had been chewed through by a rat. It didn't take at all and just withered away and died.

Fingers crossed I have better success with this one.

[The Pepper Man]

The bottom of the plant is ok though? It's just been set back a bit. It will branch out lovely with its top pruned.
Unfortunately these hiccups happen while gardening.

Yeah the bottom of the plant is okay, but unfortunately I have lost the upper 3/4 of the plant. That is clearly a massive setback.

The frustrating part is that this is one of the sweet peppers that I was most excited to grow this year, and also the largest out of the 3 that I had inside the greenhouse.

[Jay-ell]

When putting your bits to root in water do you add soluble aspirin?

[veggiechicken]

Yeah the bottom of the plant is okay, but unfortunately I have lost the upper 3/4 of the plant. That is clearly a massive setback.

The frustrating part is that this is one of the sweet peppers that I was most excited to grow this year, and also the largest out of the 3 that I had inside the greenhouse.

Look on the bright side - you still have 2 and a half left!
The more you grow, the more you accept these little setbacks.

[fluffybunnyuk]

Keep it growing pepper man. Dont fertilize it. Treat it as an overwinter plant. It could be a star next year.

[The Pepper Man]

Okay, so I turned up to the greenhouse today to find yet more damage in the way of stripped leaves and chewed stems. But nothing severe, like the pepper plant I found chewed in half yesterday.

Upon further investigation, I have now discovered what appears to be a small rodent hole in the greenhouse. It was actually so small that it would be very easy to miss, unless you were specifically looking for small mouse holes. It was probably about the size of a 5p piece. Scarlett was right about them tunnelling in.

I have blocked it up with stones and dirt, put down some poison and some chilli powder. Hopefully that will keep them at bay for now.

[The Pepper Man]

On another note, my Sungold tomato is absolutely rampant this year, growing out of control. I have never seen a tomato plant so vigorous and resistant to cool/wet weather. It has completely taken over the plot that it is planted in, and is reaching across to the heirloom varieties, invading their space.

The only other variety that is even remotely as vigorous and strong growing, is the Shirley F1, which in itself is a very, very good tomato for the UK outdoors. Large as well, and nice & early to fruit, but still not as rampant as that Sungold that I have.

I might have a go at making some 'Shirley's Gold' (Shirley F1 x Sungold) this year, to trial next season.

[veggiechicken]

Sungold is also F1.

[The Pepper Man]

Sungold is also F1.

Yeah, I thought it was an F1.

Am I right in thinking that crossing an F1 with another F1 will just create a new F1? Or will it still go to F2?

[veggiechicken]

I thought F2 grew from the seed saved from an F1 plant.
I rarely grow F1 seeds because I like to save seeds and not be locked into buying them every year.

[The Pepper Man]

I thought F2 grew from the seed saved from an F1 plant.
I rarely grow F1 seeds because I like to save seeds and not be locked into buying them every year.

But if you crossed Shirely F1 for instance, with a Sungold F1, wouldn't that reset the cycle back to F1 again with the resulting seeds, since you are crossing two entirely different F1 types to make another hybrid?

Whereas a cross of the same type (Shirley F1 x Shirley F1), would bring the resulting seeds to F2 stage? I might be wrong though, which is why I am trying to get some clarity on the whole process...

I think I have a Shirley F2 this season, from that rogue, self-seeded plant that I found growing in a potted palm, which I have since extracted and potted up. It will be interesting to see what I get from that tomato plant. It will either be a Shirley F2, or a Shirley F1 x Tumbling Tom hybrid (in which case I think it would still be F1?).

[mcdood]

I believe an F2 would result from a sungold breeding with a sungold or itself so you would get some sort of hybrid based on whatever the 2 original plants are that made the sungold.
If you breed sungold with shirley you get a resultant plant that could inherit any of the genes from the 2 different varieties that made the sungold F1 and also the 2 that made the shirley F1.

[Jay-ell]

F2 hybrids are the second generation of a hybrid line.

Each plant has 2 copies of chromosomes, one from each parent, which will give it two values for each gene. Fome genes are Dominant which means you only need one copy of that gene for the trait it controls to appear, others are recessive which means you need two copies for that one to appear.

If, for example, we take skin colour. Parent 1 may have the gene RR (red dominant) parent 2 have yy (yellow recessive). The offspring will inherit one gene from each parent which in this case it will always end up with 1 R and 1 y gene. The R being dominant means it has red skin. That is the F1 plant.

Now, if you pollinate the F1 with another of the same F1 variety this is where it can mash itself up as your parents will have a Ry and a Ry. This means that there are 4 possible ways that these genes could be inherited - RR, Ry, yR (same as Ry) and YY. So it has a 50 % chance of being Ry, a 25% Chance of being Yellow skinned and a 75% chance of being red skinned. These are the F2 generation.

If you breed these F2 generation plants to be red skinned you don't know what you're getting as you don't know if the parents are starting off Ry or RR, but at least you can select the ones with red skins to grow on to breed. These are F3 seeds.

If you keep going on like that until you eventually end up with absolutely no yellow skins then you MIGHT have stabilised your variety to be red skinned. Or it could be a statistical anomaly and all the current generation are Ry.

Selecting for recessive genes is easier though as it would have to have 2 copies of the yellow skin gene to be yellow so no red ones would make it through to the next generation.

(please note that I don't know which is the recessive and which is the dominant colour, I just used these as examples)

[The Pepper Man]

Thanks for the advice and clarification of genetic lines and breeding guys, especially Jay-ell for his lengthy and enormously helpful insight! It's very helpful and very much appreciated!