Info on 4 different caribbean peppers? Bequia, St Vincent....

16 years ago

I recently stumbled across some specialty peppers (8 varieties, I only bought 4) at my local greenhouse. The seeds we collected by a scuba diver on a vacation and grown by a local "pepper geek"

Here is what I know about them:

Bequia -

Habanero like "perfume pepper", although very hot, it supposedly has a strong perfume aroma that hits you before the heat.

St Vincent -

Extremely hot bird pepper.

Costa Rica -

Like a Habanero, but much longer. Starts out lime green and turns orange then red

Carriacau-

Habanero like pepper that is short and highly lobed.

Also, all these peppers are supposedly wild and open pollinated. The descriptions and origin information all came from the greenhouse.

Does anyone have anymore information? A quick search of the net doesn't turn up much. Although, this article (http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/bushpeppers.html) mentions loosely named wild peppers in the same area.

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Comments (3)

groovy1
16 years ago
Sleepypoint,

I do not know anything about them but I recommend that you save seed from them to continue to grow. If you are interested in sharing any seed (or even trading seed) I'd definitely be interested. I have a deep interest in the Capsicum chinense species and am always looking to try new varieties. If you want to e-mail me at Njchilehead@aol.com, please feel free. Also, what is the name of, and where is, the greenhouse at which you purchased them?

Mark in NJ
sleepypoint
Original Author
16 years ago
I purchased them from The FlowerBin in Longmont Colorado.

I may try to save some seeds, however since they are "open pollenators" I think I need to take some special steps to ensure the seeds aren't hybrid. I am not sure, but I think it involves wrapping a few flowers in a "pollen proof" bag, then using something like an eye dropper to suck pollen off of one flower and onto another.

I don't know the details. Can you provide any? I am not sure if I need two seperate plants of the same type. Since the greenhouse used a cloning techinue to propogate the plants for sale, even if I bought 2, they would be genetically similar.
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groovy1
16 years ago
Hi again Sleepypoint,

I have some techniques that I have used and thrown away, one of them was wrapping the individual blossom. Some people have a good deal of success with it. What I typically do is wrap the plant in some thule (think bridal veil material) when the plant just begins to flower. I only leave it on for a few days, then whatever fruit I get are isolated.

Even if I do not get any fruit yet I will remove the thule for a day or so to let the plant breathe more freely and adjust the thule when I put it back on for the size of the plant. I found a higher incidence of mold and poor performance on the plants that I left the thule on for too long.

As far as being open-pollinated, you do not need two plants of the same type. In fact, even if you just targeted which plants you wanted to isolate by when they were flowering you could just bring the plant inside, put it in a sunny, ventilated place, and allow it to flower and set fruit. Voila, isolated seed.

Thanks for letting me know where you got the plants. I'm interested in checking them out. E-mail me if you get the chance.

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Info on 4 different caribbean peppers? Bequia, St Vincent....

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groovy1

sleepypoint
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Info on 4 different caribbean peppers? Bequia, St Vincent....

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groovy1

sleepypointOriginal Author

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