Investigate the word "Metaxenia". The short summary is that metaxenia is when pollen affects the female plant tissue. It is possible that hot pepper pollen could cause a sweet pepper to develop some capsaicin but as previously posted, many years of research says it does not happen. Corn is a different story. When you grow white corn and it is pollinated by pollen from a corn plant that produces yellow seed, then the white corn plant produces kernels that are yellow. This is because one set of dna from the pollen is incorporated into the corn seed and since that dna codes for yellow corn and since yellow is dominant over white, the result is yellow corn kernels. The general rule of thumb is that the seed are affected by the pollen source but the fruit that houses the seed is not. There are examples such as apple that break this rule for specific characters. DarJones

Try this, it's delicious with any hot pepper. Cooked Chili Garlic Sauce 6 ounces hot chiles (e.g., cayenne, Fresnos, habanero, jalapeno, long, serrano, Thai, or a combination of them), stemmed and chopped 4 cloves garlic, chopped ½ teaspoon salt 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar 1 1/2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar Put all the ingredients in an electric mini-chopper or food processor. Process to a coarse texture. Take a whiff and it should make you sweat a bit. Taste and adjust the flavor with add extra salt or sugar. Transfer to a small saucepan, bring to a vigorous simmer over medium heat, lower the heat to gently simmer for about 5 minutes, or until it no longer smells raw. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Transfer to a jar and store in the refrigerator. Makes a scant 2/3 cup. I use a lot more garlic, and vinegar, but that's just my taste. Steve

Thanks - they were predicting freezing rain today, snow tomorrow so I harvested green ones, pulled whole plants (I read you can hang them like tomatoes) and hung them in the basement, and dug some others up yesterday, put the pots in the garage. My biggest one (18" tall x 36" wide) didn't look so good this AM - and lots of green pods, so I may have to hang that one. Made 2 batches (8 pints) of pickled peppers (rings and whole) today, house smells like boiling vinegar! Tomorrow I start the jelly. Froze some big Numex chiles for chile relleno casserole, but I've got to get some ground meat and make stuffed bell peppers, I've got some nice ones that I don't want to cut up for jelly or salad. Too bad my kids don't like stuffed peppers. And now the forecast changed! It was pretty nice today, rain tomorrow, freezing temps tomorrow night and snow maybe this weekend, but I could have spent 2 days prepping (and maybe that big plant would be doing better). I've still got 2 big Thai plants in the ground, I should have harvested ripe pods today but they're covered with a tarp - have to see what I can cut off tomorrow or Friday. I don't use the Thais too much, have a bunch in the fridge, so no great loss.

I pickled heaps of them, from holy crap hot to tangy mild to pepperonchini. Dehydrated a lot too, I use lots of dehydrated peppers. The greatest amount of them went through the smoker and dried for smoked paprika and hot pepper flake-frigging yum! I still have tons on the plants that I'm letting go as late as I can, the Black Hungarians and Aji Lemons especially. In a week or few when the frosts start up and I'm finally done with processing tomatoes into a billion things, I'll do up some jars of various fridge pickled goodness :)