The Madman Plans A Hybridizing Journey

            I bet you’re wondering where the madman’s going on this hybridizing journey. For a start, he announced he’s saving his own seeds this season. Good idea, I thought at first. But when I looked at his Christmas List and saw blossom bags and paint brushes near the top, I realized that he is truly a madman. He’s not “just saving seeds,” he’s entering the mysterious world of plant hybridizing.

In our last blog, we told you about the madman’s adventure with some of his hot pepper seeds. The labels were all wrong. Instead of hot, exotic varieties, the seeds from one source all produced common Cayenne Peppers. And, as you know, the madman likes exotic, not common. So he’s decided to take matters into his own hands by hybridizing his own pepper variety. These are the seeds he intends to save.

Know Your Plants and Seeds

Hybridizing won’t be easy. To understand why, you have to know about plants and their seeds. Seeds are produced when pollen from a male anther fertilizes a female pistil. Sounds easy, but Mother Nature hates easy. Some plant varieties have perfect flowers where every blossom contains both a male anther and a female pistil. These plants can self-pollinate and each flower can produce a fruit. Other plant varieties contain two types of blossoms on the same plant – one with only male anthers, another with female pistils. Fruit only grows on the female blossoms. Still others have all male flowers or all female flowers on a single plant and fruit is only borne on the female plants. Confused yet? Try this one on – some fruit trees require two different species to produce.

But let’s go back to the madman and explain why now is a good time to begin his hybridizing journey. It will start with the seed type. Descriptions in seed catalogs contain some important designations: open-pollinated, heirloom and hybrid. Knowing the difference is essential.

Open-pollinated Seeds

Open-pollination occurs as a result of wind, insects, animals and humans. Each of these can move a grain or two of pollen from the male anther to the female pistil. The heirloom designation just means that the open-pollinated seed has been saved over generations within a family or community. Often, these seeds come with a good story, such as in the case of Grandpa Ott’s Morning Glory. Open pollination ensures genetic diversity.

Hybrid Seeds

Hybrids are the result of cross pollination between two varieties. This can occur in nature, as in the Ghost Pepper (Capsicum chinense x C. frutescens), but more commonly happens in a controlled environment where a breeder determines the pollination. The purpose of hybridizing is to create a new variety that combines the positive traits of two different plants, such as the taste of one and the disease-resistance of another.

No No No To GMO

You may have noticed we omitted GMO varieties. These seeds are produced by manipulating genes in a laboratory as opposed to a grower’s careful pollination in a field or greenhouse. We choose not to grow GMOs because the madman feels that this is a rapid way to destroy biodiversity. Besides, if friend and master gardener Chantal Foster caught him planting GMOs she would kill him.

Saving Seeds Forever

Our ancestors have been saving seeds forever, and it’s something that all home gardeners can do. In fact, it’s a good way to grow plants that will do well in your specific environment. There are some excellent resources available on-line. We highly recommend Seed Savers Exchange and Native Seeds/SEARCH for their easy-to-follow guides and their supplies of easily shared seeds.

Plan A Won’t Work

The madman’s first hybridizing plan was to cross a Bulgarian Carrot with a Thai Bird’s Eye to produce a small bushy plant with orange peppers. His enthusiasm began to fade when he looked at the Latin names of his seeds. The Bulgarian Carrot is a Capsicum annum but the Bird’s Eye variety he has is C. frutescens, much to his disappointment.

For the beginning plant breeder, mixing species can be risky or even futile. Even the madman didn’t want to take the risk, so he began looking for a C. annum to replace the Thai Bird’s Eye. He decided to cross the Bulgarian Carrot with an Ancho/Poblano (Poblano are the fresh form; Ancho is the dried form) to maybe bump up the heat of the Poblano. Poblanos have a Scoville heat rating of 2,000 while the Bulgarian Carrot hits the scale at 30,000; if the pepper turns out orange, all the better.

This Will Take Time

I reminded him that a stable “new” variety may take him up to 10 years to create. He seemed unfazed. But his smile told me that he plans to speed up the process with artificial light. Over the next couple of weeks, the madman plans to germinate seeds of each variety. The resulting seedlings will grow under his lights in the basement where the Persephone Period doesn’t exist, and he has been able to produce peppers before. Thanks to a trusty timer, he knows they will get the light they need to grow and the dark they need to rest. He even has a fan that will simulate wind in order to strengthen the stems.

He expects that by the end of March these plants will be producing flowers. Then the work starts. The madman will go from plant watcher to plant pollinator; or more specifically, plant manipulator. In theory the process sounds easy – just stand there with a paintbrush and play bee, moving pollen from Variety A to Variety B or from Variety B to Variety A depending upon which plant will produce the pepper. But pepper plants contain perfect flowers, meaning each blossom can self-fertilize and ruin the process. Before the buds begin to open, the madman will need to be extra diligent if he is to control the process.

The Pollination Process Begins

He will select a blossom of one variety to serve as the mother. Using a forceps (remember, he used to work on people’s eyes), he will peel off the petals and very carefully snip off the male anthers, leaving behind a female pistil. Then he will gather pollen from an open flower on the other variety. This he will carefully transfer to the tip (or stigmata) of the mother plant’s pistil. Using his Christmas blossom bags, he will isolate the blossom to prevent any stray pollen from entering.

He Still Needs Luck

If he’s lucky, in a week he’ll find a small pepper beginning to develop. This process will be repeated several times with a bunch of plants. And, sometimes Variety A will serve as the mother; sometimes Variety B will be the mother. Hopefully by May, the peppers will have ripened so the first generation (F1) seeds can be planted in the garden. If the madman can’t isolate this generation of plants, he’ll use the blossom bags to isolate selected flowers. Since these blossoms will all be capable of self-pollination, this isolation will ensure no unwanted cross-pollination occurs.

If blossom bags show up on his Christmas list next year, I will know that he considers the hybrid journey a success and plans to expand his operation.

At any rate, just thinking about the process makes me thirsty so I guess it’s time for hot cocoa. I think I’ll have animal crackers with mine – if the madman hasn’t already bitten off all the heads.