Chocolate Jolokia Pods

As usual, you always forgot some plants. Here is the Chocolate Jolokia. Two fruits are showing on this picture. They are pretty whitish. More pale then the B. Jolokia pods. Might be because of local condition.










Here it shows with the real amount of fruits. Four to be precise.











Finishing it off with this picture. How many pods on this picture?









Answer will be in my comment.

Mature B. Jolokia Pod and some other unmature pods.

Above are pictures of a B. Jolokia Pod in its mature version.

Let us define what a mature pod is. Well, a mature pod is when the plant changes the color of the pod from green ( normally) to an arbitrary color. It is a "go ahead signal" to whatever species that is supposed to spread the seeds to make itself helpful. The plant is ready now and the pod can be considered Mature . But, as a chile pepper grower, we can certainly argue about different levels of maturity of the Pod. In nature, the plant decides that by giving a visual signal. I have about 12 pods on this B. Jolokia in a 3,5 litre container.

Unmature Naga Morich ( Capsicum Chinense) Pod

The whole plant got one Pod. But it is actually bigger then the B. Jolokia Pods. Probably because it can just put a lot of energy into this sole pod. I need maybe only 3-4 more pods from this plant. Then I am satisfied. This one was transplantated out in a 3,5 litre container. Funny thing is that the Naga Morich flowers ( at least mine under my conditions) drops more pollen then the B. Jolokia flowers. A speculative theory is that my "Naga" plant has like max 10-15 flowers going on. And energy can be give to these to produce pollen for all flowers. Whilst my B. Jolokia had ridicolously high amount of flowers. And some of them wont get enough energy for pollen production. ( amount of flowers has decreased rapidly thanks to thrips and more pods on the plant).







Unmature Piquin ( Capsicum Annuum) Pod ( very small about 3 mm)



Here you can see a small Pequin pod. Very prolific plant. Easy to pollinate. Makes the B. Jolokia pollination look like a pathetic procedure. Here you just swoosh your pollination pencil and it goes "ok" and you have a fruit 5-10 days later.








Here is how it looks like about 5 days after pollination. The flower bud does not fall off from the plant. But the flower petals shrink and you know you have a fruit going on. On the Pequin I have approximately around 15 fruits going on. Much thanks to pollinating it around a week ago.










Here is a look at the Pequin Flower.













A look at the weird shape of my Pequin plant. My neighbour asked me " why the hell do most of your plants have that 4-shaped branch thing appearance???" I answered " Even Satan himself can not explain that..........even Satan himself..."











Unmature Red Caribbean( Capsicum Chinense) Pod




This small plant, in form of the Red Caribbean, is also driven by the unstoppable forces of evolution. I did not expect that it would produce fruits. But one is going on!

Official Pod date = 29th May 2010.







Thanks to a small dose of a male vitamine pill called in swedish "Apotekets man" it has produced a lot of flowers for it small size.












Bishops Hat ( Capsicum Baccatum) unmature pods.

A look on the weirdly shaped pods of the Bishop Hat. There is like 8-20 names on the variety of Bishop Hat. It can be interpretated as a trace of what the chaotic human mind without unorganized thinking can achieve. Or, an agressive form of campaign from seed companies to sell off their seeds. In either case, I will stick to what I learned it by at first. Bishops Hat.










Long Slim Cayenne ( Capsicum Annuum) Pod going on

Here is a pic of Long slim Cayenne unmature pod going on. Extremely easy to pollinate. Drops as much pollen as Bishops Hat. 5 unmature pods on this plant. Official pod date = 30th May 2010.

















Chocolate Scotch Bonnet ( Capsicum Chinense) = 0 pod


Unfortunately this huge Plant has not decided of its whereabout. The thrips might got something to do with it. The situation needs radical solutions. The solutions of a mad man is required here. I put in 5 earthworms here. Added some "apotekets man" vitamine pil.l About half a pill in a glass of water + a little oil and frantical stirring.

Plant is 1 meter in width but has shortened ( due to the weight of the branches) to 72 cm. No more fertilizer at all for this one.




Pimenta De Neyde ( Capsicum Chinense x Capsicum Annuum)

The beautiful Piementa De Neyde. That was supposed to be the flagship in my crossing matrix has tormented my soul and tortured my heart. No pod on this one so far.

But vigorous work is being done by the sun and my pollination pencil. Hopefully the plant will be more cooperative as the season goes into its hottest phase.

Date of Fruit ( Piquin, Capsicum Annuum)

This very late fruit setter ( for me) has decided to go into the fruiting business. 3 tiny small pods on its way. Date 26/5/2010.


Me happy!?

Thrips attack!!

This is not good. Last night when I pollinated the flowers. I found out that some small parasitic animals kept dropping from the flowers. From almost all plants as well!

I have thrips it seems. One of the 5000 different species that exist. I have never had thrips before. So, I am a bit worried about their potential danger. Any report or documentation of what these bastards have accomplished to your plants in the past will gladly be taken. Good advice is valuable in this case. These little critters are not more then 1 mm in size. Right now there are not that many of them. But they seem to have been on a search and destroy mission with my flowers as their main target. That said, it makes the area around my plants look like a flower Holocaust with flowers laying without having had a real chance of making any fruits.

The flowers are mad, I am certainly displeased and the plants are bothered. Damn bugs. Unfortunately ( or fortunately) they are not in such numbers so that pest control in form of biological agents are required.............yet.

Interview with the Finlander in the Sauna.

I am working on a project in which some of it is about how many chile pepper growers we have in the different Nordic countries. One country that sticks out in a rather funny way, in comparison to the others Nordic countries, is Finland. Mind you, it is not the first time the rather odd people to the east have a weird feature of some kind. In this case, they have a extreme faschination of growing chile peppers.

Yesterday I was in the Sauna and not surprisingly I met a Finn by the name of Juha. I had to raise the question about the Finnish culture and started to sneak interview him about their
peculiar attraction to chile pepper fruits. I mean chile peppers are not exactly something used by tradition in the finnish cuisine for the last 200 years or so? It has to be viewed as something rather fashionable perhaps? After a small introduction I began the
interview.

Question to Juha: Why do you think the Finns grows chile pepper plants more then for
example us Swedes?

Juha: I have no idea, but the finnish man is definately someone who have a tendency to different macho culture variations. That is the only explanation I can find.

Question: But why do you think they would have this Macho tendency then? Is there a historical reason for it? Does it have to do something with the imminent threat from the big old Russia in the past so the men could never allow themself to relax. And as such they formed themselves to some kind of super macho men?

Juha laughed here, to what I thought was a really serious question. I myself forged a what I
hoped was a convincing laughter. My interview victim seemed relaxed in answering my questions despite the extreme heat in the sauna.

Juha said: I am not sure. But now when you say so. There must be a historical reason for it. I know that my dad did not express much feelings. And I think that for some reason many Finlander (men) dont either. So perhaps by expressing themselves through different macho cultures it is a way of protesting toward the non-expressing feeling culture and at the same time you proclaim your male dominance somehow by demonstrating how macho you really are. You simply use your hobby here as a form of ventilation of the culture.

I had no idea what Juha meant here. But the conversation ended here. He bid me goodbye and
had to leave. I myself was satisfied with both the answers and the fact that I endured the Sauna
session much longer then the finn Juha. Perhaps I too have some macho tendencies?

( the above pic is from the Sauna world championship, apparently the Finns have such a thing along with a competition called wife-carrying championship, odd people indeed.)

Forgot to document Naga Morich/Bishop Hat/Chocolate Jolokia fruit

Date of Naga Morich fruit = 2010-05-05 +- ( 2 days or so, did not think it was a fruit at first)
Date of Bishop Hat fruit confirmed = 2010-05-16
Date of Chocolate Jolokia fruit confirmed = 2010-05-19

Sperm and pollen

I stumbled upon an interesting scientific article about the resemblance of sperm and pollen. Such an issue may make you ponder about it. In a what some may interpretate as an imaginative angle. But I believe there is some relevance to a following bizarre perspective.

If you could view the pollen of the plants as the equivalence of animal sperm. Then you realize, empirically, that different chile peppers have different amount of sperms. As with us animals.

If you could view the pollen releasing process of a plant as the ejaculation process of for example a human being. Then different plants definitely have various amount of "load" when they are coming in their ejaculation process. As with us humans ( I am guessing when it came to the last statement).

One thing is for sure. The officially worlds strongest chile pepper, B. Jolokia Capsicum Chinense, sure hell does not have the biggest "load" in its ejaculation process. It holds the record as the strongest pepper, but when it comes to showing off in the "ejaculation" process it still has much left to proove. (The real reason for that was explained in a previous input about B. Jolokia)

Another one of my plants have though a real HUGE omnipotent "load" and certainly have no problem in the ejaculating process. When it comes to giving away enough amount of pollen. To ensure the survival of its species. It does its job by overstating its abilities on the sex front.

The plant is a horny vigorous specimen, by the name of Bishops Hat ( Capsicum Baccatum).
Here is picture of the plant with the "voluminous load". Right now, it is laying on its back. Content with itself after having had sex with my finger ( pollinated this one). Last time I let it have sex with my fingers, two flowers out of two got "pregnant". That said, I must admit I have some secret admiration about this chile peppers prolific abilities. And it feels good to get immediate results in the making babies process( fruits ). Especially after having gone through numerous laborious unsuccesful pollination methods/trials with the much more unfruitful specimen B. Jolokia.







( Of course, my imagination of how everything works did not provide me with accurate picture of the process. Here is a link to how pollen actually works. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-video/467948/16677/Pollen-transports-sperm-cells-to-flowers-egg-cells )

Height data III

Bishops Hat ( Capsicum Baccatum)

Height:80 cm. Width: 60 cm Pot container: 10 litres

Comments: This plant got stunted and was stuck at around 61 cm. I had to make a change. The one big change I made was to put in an earth worm. One single earth worm. Otherwise it have had almost the same amount of light and watering. I have also given it more Phosphor and Potassium as well. It has grown 20 cm in 29 days. Comparing it with 1 cm in 12 days with the previous data. Magical Earthworm?





Piquin ( Capsicum Annuum)

Height: 42 cm Width:60 cm Pot Container: 3,5 litres

Comments:This Piquin follows the same pathway as my B.Jolokia (Capsicum Chinense). It turns out to be more and more bushy. For some reason several of my plants has that characteristic. My speculation is that it must be my special light conditions. With 2*36 W and very little sunlight ( about 2-3 hours/day). 5 cm in height growth in 29 days. But extremely more bushy. Lacked width data.







B. Jolokia ( Capsicum Chinense)

Height: 42 cm Width: 62 cm Pot Container: 3,5 litres

Comments: This B. Jolokia has obtained 5 fruits now. One of them is approximately around 5 cm. It has dropped around 120 (+-) 20 flowes. The plant is extremely bushy. And resembles the same characteristic appearance as the Piquin. One main stem and 4 main branches spreading horizontally. The ratio between flower/fruit is not promising. But most probably an indication of my very poor light conditions. Plant looks extremely healthy though. Approximately around 30-40 open flowers all the time. Which amazes me most. 12 cm height growth in 29 days.





Chocolate Jolokia (Capsicum Chinense)

Height: 55 cm Width: 40 cm Pot container: 3,5 liter


Comments: This one is a vigorous grower. It does not resemble the other plants in the characteristic bushy appearance. But I also bought it when it was around 1,5 month old. So as a youngster it was taken care of by Patrick from Stockholm. I have pollinated this one two times. I have also made a crossing attempt between Piementa De Neyde and the Chocolate Jolokia. It will then be a crossing between ( Capsicum Annuum) x (Capsicum Chinense)x (Capsicum Frutescens). Some of you may raise their eyebrows and say " Hey, where does the Frutescens come into the picture?". Well, the thing is, B. Jolokia/C. Jolokia has some ( Capsicum Frutescens) in its originally. How much it is? I let an gene analyst answer that question. Height growth 18 cm in 29 days. This one is working hard in the wind now. I think it appreciates the exercise ?







Naga Morich (Capsicum Chinense)

Height: 40 cm Width: 25 cm Pot container: 1,5 litres.

Comments: The mythical Naga Morich. With lethal potent fruits that can make most macho men shiver by fear. This Plant has flowered already. I have crossed it with the Piementa De Neyde. But I dont expect it to set fruit because of it. I still think I have to be patient and wait for the summer season so I can take out my plants on the backside where they can use some afternoon sun from 16:00-21:00. At the moment it is too cold in the afternoon/evening sun. It is a beautiful plant in general. But I fear it somehow. I need to repot this one into a bigger container. But I have little space. Besides, I am not interested in getting tons of fruits from this one. Height growth 20 cm in 29 days.









Red Savina (Capsicum Chinense)

Height: 32 cm Width: 20 cm Pot Container: 3,5 litres

Comments: This one was stunted because of Phosphorous deficiency. The leaves had a blueish colour and got thick because of sugar building up in the leaves. I gave it phosphor and it started to grow. But the main inhibiting factor for growth has been light for this one. It has not gained much light. Nor has it had the privilige to take advantage of my light bulb due to space problem. Height growth 7 cm in 29 days. Good thing, it is not stunted anymore. I think the phosphor addition did the trick.













Caribbean Red II ( Capsicum Chinense)

Height: 18 cm Width: 30 cm Pot Container: 1,5 litres


Comments: This is another Caribbean Red. A friend of mine got 30 years old and I gave the other one away as a gift. This one has seen very little light. Definatly no direct light from the sun at least. A pathetic puny plant with not much of hope to set fruit. But astonishingly it is flowering at the moment. Amount of flowers = one. It does not grow in height but to the sides. Can not compare data to previous data. That plant was given away.



Long Slim Cayenne ( Capsicum Annuum )

Height: 33 cm Width: 7 cm Pot Container: 1,5 litres

Comments: I expect this one to set flowers soon. The height would indicate it is time to change the pot. But I have a feeling that it is not well rooted yet and wait 1-2 weeks more. A simple plant, nothing fancy. But it is always cool to have one of the "regulars". Tallish plant. 15 cm in 29 days.


Piementa De Neyde ( Capsicum Chinense x Capsicum Annuum)

Height:70 cm Width: 20 cm Pot Container: 12 litres

Comments: The beautiful Piementa De Neyde. The flowers are beautiful, the leaves are beautifil. A sheer joy for the eye. A main stem with no bushy appearance. The plants I bought have had no Bushy appearance. But the plants grown on my own has obtained it. Heigth growth 14 cm in 29 days.


Chocolate Scotch Bonnet ( Capsicum Chinense)

Height: 70 cm Width: 83 cm Pot Container: 12 litres


Comments: It is a Chocolate Scotch Bonnet, but I should call it Steroidal Scotch Bonnet. This plant has flowered. But sometimes it drops its unopened flowers. I take it as a sign that the plant is still going for the growth strategy. As such I am not giving it more Nitrogene. It just looks too healthy. I look at this one as the "Arnold Schwarzenegger" of my plants. Or going with the Jaimaican accent calling it " Mr. BushaaaMaaan." Well, those days are over for this one. Now it will just be Phosphor and Potassium on the menu. It can kiss its sweet precious Nitrogene Bye Bye.
Heigth growth 12 cm in 29 days. But extremely width growth. One of the biggest leaf is 23 cm in length. I am not sure if it is common for this variety. But it sure has the biggest leaves of my varieties.




The other plants are either too small or too uninteresting to get in the statistics since they get too much of a variation in both lights water etc. One will never be able to see any linearity.

An interesting swedish tv show about epigenes

This is an interesting tv show about epigenes. Swedish audience only unfortunately.

http://svtplay.se/v/1959243/vetenskapens_varld/del_12_av_18__vara_geners_hemliga_liv?cb,a1364145,1,f,-1/pb,a1364142,1,f,-1/pl,v,,1986455/sb,p102815,1,f,-1


The show explains a bit about how plants works in relation to seasons. How it is controlled by the genes when to flower etc.

Regarding flower dropping on B. Jolokia

Apparently B. Jolokia has a special origin in terms of genes. It is a chinensecultivar but has also a bit of C. Frutescens. That automatically lead to thatthis cultivated hybrid can have have some problems because of its crossing.

So one should expect a bit of pollen abortion and flower dropping because of that. Good, I thought I sucked in pollinating my flowers. I have 4 fruits on it now. But plant lost some energy by dropping around 100-150 flowers?

Source P. Bosland

Some pondering about acetyl salicylic acid usage on plants.

I have read some reports about subjective conclusions from different people regarding the usage of acetylsalicylic acid ( ASA). First of all let us make it clear to all readers. Acetylsalicylic acid is not to be considered a nutritient in terms of macro/micro nutritients. The second part to this is even though it is subjective conclusions made by some people of the usage on plants and the effects of it. It was not totally clear for me in what purpose it was used. It seems as it was used in some form of preventive purpose to make plants more resistence against "outworldly stress" attacks. Which these three links given by mr. mrarboc in a previous comment shows. The subjective conclusions are not necessarily incorrect. But they certainly can be confusing. Some explanations were just rumours. Though there is a study made about acetylsalicylacid made in the University of Arizona. Which also one of the links mention.
( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/08/980806090010.htm)

"In plants, aspirin blocks the production of jasmonic acid by similarly binding a critical enzyme.

"Jasmonic acid is a hormone that is made when plants are in distress. It signals the production of plant-defense compounds -- it works a little like a shot of pain, warning the plant that it is under attack. It can also volatilize and warn nearby plants, a chain reaction that's like a warning signal to other plants. This seems to particularly apply to insect attack, as the alerted plants then produce specific compounds that produce insect gastro-intestinal distress.

"It turns out that aspirin will suppress the formation of this compound (jasmonic acid), so it suppresses the warning signal, like it suppresses pain in animals," Backhaus said.

While humans may want to tune out the pain "alarm" signaling that their body is under distress, it is hard to see what benefit aspirin's suppression could have in the plant reaction.

Unless you're a hungry insect ransacking a patch of plants, that is, and you want to shut off the neighborhood's burglar alarms... and have lunch. "

What is written above is in sciencedaily ( popular science?, did not bother to check how valuable the source is).I have seen a scientific report about resistance increasing in tobacco plant against tobacco viruse by using (ASA)from 1979. I also read some abstracts from other scientific reports about increased stress tolerance. With a conclusion " Induction of multiple stress tolerance in plants by exogenous
application of SA and its derivatives may have a significant practical application in agriculture, horticulture and
forestry." In which SA is salicylic acid. What that means is that it can perhaps work as a stress reliever for the plant or a stress resilience enhancer of some form. Question is, what concentrations as usual? One report had actually tried to investigate that. It was in the first link mr. Arboc gave me. In it it said too much concentration = plant damage. Good enough concentration = increased enhanced resilience against stress factors ( they did not specify stress factors, but they mention temperature, bacterial attacks as what can be considered stress factors)

" In this experiment, a concentration of 15mM (millimoles) was used. However, little of the salicylic acid (1.4%) moved into new plant tissues after 24 hours."

This is part of the complexity. Some of it was taken up by the plants, but not all. Notice also that this experiment ( even if not mentioned specifically) was probably taken out in hydroponic system. If you use soil then this can be a slippery experiment. How much is 15 mMol in amount of Alvedon? ( 1 alvedonpill/1,85dl) water. If you have a sick plant and you are full of experimental lust. I say go for it. Our chile pepper plants are our hobby. We want to take care of them. This knowledge can be used when the plant is sick or before that. It is your choice actually. You have gained the knowledge how to do it. I personally wont use ASA unless a plant is looking sick. Unfortunately I dont have any really sick plants. Well, now when you mention it. I will try it on my Red Caribbean it has a bit of stunted growth. Thanks mrarboc for the input. I hope parts of this long input helped you a bit on the way of chile pepper growing. The only thing you need to be worried about is to use alvedon in high concentration. Several reports indicated that plant could take damage. I would also question usage if one already have nice healthy plants. It feels like an overkill situation. In the end, one have to ask oneself. What kind of a chile pepper grower are you? Personally I like to keep it as enviromental as possible. My plants should not be bothered with man-kind medicine. But I will not judge others if they use it. Heck I am going to
dissolve one alvedon and add it to to one plant in 5 minutes from now.
If you wanna experiment, do it! You should not inhibit your lust of experimenting. I mean I will do it now just because I am a curious grower. I am not sure though. That one should reconsider using ASA as a weekly routine thing to add ASA to the plants. I did not look into the reports thoroughly to get an idea of how much of a seasonal concentration a plant can handle or not. But if we have a crazy plant owner. Please report to us the
results you obtained!! Once again, thanks for the input mrarboc. It is an interesting subject. But a also a complicated one.

Switching to english

I noticed on the visitor calculator that there are a lot of international guests at my blog. And as such I will switch to english.

My Beautiful B. Jolokia "papa Pod" felt lonely. I am glad he obtained some kind of company by Junior to the left.

I must admit I am somewhat puzzled and perplexed. When it comes to the pollination techniques I believe I have like tested every single one of them. I do know that I am doing them correctly. What I also know is that my light conditions at my window seat is very poor. To say the least. I am using 2*36 W light source. But the important sun I get none of it unless I am taking the plants outside. My guess is that my plants will be able to produce only if they meet mother Sun frequently. Will keep you updated on it.

This gives me a situation. I want to grow, but I want it to be as enviromentally as possible. Today I made a choice. After Jan Löfgren, a chili blogger in Sweden got worried about a form of sea-kelp and heavy metal concentration in it. I found out that some of our fertilizers contains some Kadmium. It kind of pissed me off. I was not surprised. But I hoped it would not be so.

As such I drew a line......well in my head at least. I want my gardening and my hobby to be as enviromental as possible. Therefore I do not intend to buy another light source to produce fruits.

Furthermore, I am going to use my own pee as a fertilizer. Heck, now when I got data thanks to a reader by the name of Michael as well, I can get a good idea of how much and how often to give the plants. Best to end this post with something positive. Here is a picture of a plant I am extremely fond of. The flower of Piementa De Neyde ( photo by dig camera this time).

Äntligen ytterligare fruktbildning.

Lördagen den 24 april testade jag några ny handpollineringstekniker. Inspirerad av bland annat olika Youtube klipp. Kontrollerad pollineringsprocess är viktig att få till perfektion på grund av korsningsexperiment i framtiden. Jag ville även gärna ha kvitto på något resultat i form av 5-6 nya frukter. Vid inspektion hade två nya B. Jolokia frukter hälsat på mitt nyfikna lynne .

Min slutsats är dock att det är lite för osannolikt att det är ett resultat av ny pollineringsteknik.

Fruktbildningsfrågan får hitta svar på annat håll. Troligt är, dåliga ljusförhållanden. En annan intressant frågeställning är hur långt räcker 3,5 liters krukan i avseende på fruktbildning? Rent näringsmässigt är det inget problem. Finns det andra begränsande faktorer? Som ni förstår, så är det sådant som jag roas av. Frågor och teorier.