I hate to rain on this parade. It is very unlikely that any of your seed will grow. There is however a small chance if you will try the method below: How can I improve germination and "Wake UP" old or poor quality seed? Old seed gradually lose viability because of oxidation of the endosperm and loss of nutrients in the embryo. If the seed are dead, they are dead, no amount of heroics will make them grow. If even a few of the seed are viable, then here are some steps that may help. 1. The most important and essential item needed is water, but not in excess. The next most important is oxygen. Third most important is nitrate. Fourth is a source of growth regulators like salicylic acid. 2. Prepare a seed start tray with good quality moistened seed start mix such as promix bx. This MUST be sterile mix! 3. Get some miracle grow or peters or whatever variety available of water soluble fertilizer with a high nitrate content. Mix 1/2 teaspoon fertilizer with a quart of water. Alternatively, use "tea" made from oak or tea leaves as below. 4. Saturate a paper towel with the fertilizer water and then let just enough drip out to be thoroughly wet. 5. Loosely wrap a large quantity of seed in the paper towel so that the seed are not clumped up, but are in a single layer with each seed touching the towel. 6. Place the paper towel in a ziploc bag and drop it in the refrigerator for 16 to 20 hours. The bag MUST contain air, the seed need oxygen! See instructions below to increase the oxygen level if you feel that might help. 7. Remove the seed from the paper towel and carefully sow them on top of the seed start mix well spread out so that seed do not touch each other. 8. Do NOT heavily cover the seed, instead, gather a small amount of the seed start mix and dust it over the seed so that they can still receive light but have a light dusting on top. The easiest way to do this is by putting the seed start mix in a large mesh screen kitchen sifter/strainer. The seed must be spread out so they are not touching each other, otherwise mold will be a problem. 9. Place the seed start tray in an incubator at 85 degrees for up to 20 days. A chicken egg incubator works fine for this purpose. Humidity must be kept very high. If you are using a chicken egg incubator, fill the water tray and keep it filled. If you are trying to germinate them at room temp, cover them with a sheet of plastic to prevent evaporative cooling and to keep the seed moist. 10. check the seed daily to see if any are breaking the seedcoat and if so, put them in very bright light immediately. 11. Be patient. I have had seed take up to 7 weeks to germinate. 12. Old seed that manage to germinate may have a range of problems from stuck seedcoats to missing growing points. Stuck seedcoats are easiest to remove by coating them with saliva and waiting 30 minutes, then pinching the seedcoat off. If there is no growing point but the cotyledons are healthy, wait patiently, they will often generate an adventitious shoot which will grow normally. Increasing the oxygen content in the ziploc bag can help. I have done this by putting a cup of hydrogen peroxide in a pint jar and then adding a package of dry yeast. This releases a huge amount of oxygen which you can capture by holding the ziploc bag over the top of the jar. To make seed tea: Get some dry oak leaves, crumble them up, then pour 1 quart of boiling water over them. Let them steep until the water is cool, then pour the water through a strainer into a quart jar and add 1/2 of an aspirin (pure old plain generic aspirin is salicylic acid, a plant growth regulator) and 1/2 of a teaspoon of a water soluble fertilizer such as miracle grow. Soak a paper towel in the liquid and wring out most of it. This also works using ordingary "tea" leaves. The tannic acid from the oak leaves prevents mold and helps break dormancy. The salicylic acid from the aspirin stimulates growth. The nitrate from the fertilizer triggers the seed to initiate growth. But the magic secret is that it contains water. Remember, no matter what you do, you can't wake up a dead seed!

Yep, I set my heat mats to get a soil temp of 83 last year and they varied a couple degrees either way. I have seen some say they go into the upper 80's to 90 but I don't think anyone would advocate much over 90. Lower 80's seems to work fine and my first year I germinated in the lower 70's and it worked fine...just took a day or two longer. But I have heat mats now so I try for the preferred lower 80's like Edymnion. Bruce

A C. chinense with yellow anthers is very uncommon though not unheard of. They are described in literature but have never come across one in many years of growing peppers. I don't think you will ever find an exact match commercially available. It is probably a land race from the area where it was gathered and as such you probably have the only specimens outside Brazil. As I said previously I am quite interested in this variety because of the unusual anther color and wish you luck in getting seeds from it. Wayne

I have taken seed out of the pod which had been dried on the counter for several weeks and have germinated it in 6 days in paper towel. The pod originally was mostly green with a slight hint of turning color. The pepper in question was SHISHITO, that I bought some from Asian market for pickling. I have done the same with habanero (store bought) it also germinated in 6 days ... no treatment. I have also germinated seeds from some ornamental fresh pod and has germinated in 6 days. I think fresher seeds germinate more readily. I bough some pequin(dry pods in bag, (product of Mexico) from spice section of store and I am trying to germinated. It has been 10 days without any signs of germination YET. I think light does not matter. I have seen on You Tube, this lady started seeds by 3 method : (i) in starter mix (2) in paper towel (3) in a glass jar( with a few drops of water ,maybe a tea spoon. stuffed the mouth with some plastic, made into the shape of ball ). The seeds in the jar germinated first, then in the paper towel, then in the starter mix.