It is very possible that the seed will be crossed but also possible that it might not be. The only problem lies when you go through all that time and work only to have some weird cross grow instead of the pepper you actually wanted. I'd say it's best to isolate or buy seeds from a reliable source.

It depends on bee activity in your garden (generally small halactid bees that are not very noticable) and the proportion of different peppers and how they are arranged (blocks vs rows vs mixed). For tomatoes in my garden (24 plants, one of each variety) an average of 20% of the seed is crossed by another plant. If I were growing multiple plants of any one variety the effective percentage of crossing would be reduced. The structure of a tomato blossom promotes self fertilization much moreso than the structure of a pepper blossom, so I have to assume that peppers are as bad if not worse. But if the grower has a block of several plants of the same variety growing together the percentage gets reduced.

I would be the most worried most about trading with people growing many varieties - 1-2 plants each.

I grow about 30 varieties each year ,and I'd say 1 in 4 plants cross,For instance ,this year,from saved seed I grew 3 Tepin and one wasn't "right" 4 florida wild and one grew big pods,4 gold bullet and 1 grew little pods...ETC...BUT...I have grown out crosses that reverted back to the original pepper!So it's a mystery,but sometimes I prefer the crosses.
Kevin

I've never done this, but I'm going to try and bag some blossoms next
year. If I can keep 1 or 2 peppers on one plant from cross pollinating,
I can save those seeds for the next year.

It seems like the crosses I've gotten were on the least productive plants.
I think a bee has to go to several plants to get it's load of pollen if the plants have only a few buds but they can zero in on a full load all at once if the plant has a lot of buds to collect from.
I seemed to get more crossed pods early and late in the season when only a few buds are on a bunch of plants.
Now I mostly just put white glue on about to open buds and tie a thread around the stem to mark them.
I loose a lot of buds but all you need are a couple pure pods unless you are selling seeds or whatever.

Trying to get crosses is sometimes pretty hard to do,especially between plants that aren't the same-Annuum,Chinense etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: cross chart-scroll down

I've tried single blossom bags, larger branch tip bags, glue etc and found that it is much easier (and more successful) to bag the whole young plant until it outgrows the bag and then mark the position on the branches that have growing peppers. A yard of tulie netting costs about a dollar and makes plant sized bags simply by folding the material over and sewing up two sides. If you do not want to sew up the sides can use staples, or maybe even duct tape.

Hi Marxxx,

Bugs, wind and fairies contribute to cross pollination. Aside from spacing your various varieties 1/2 - 1 mile apart, you're left with bagging, wrapping and bud gluing to prevent crossing.

If it helps, the link below illustrates the likely likelihood of one variety crossing with another.

Bill

Here is a link that might be useful: Xpollination chart

spiced_ham, I may try you idea of covering the whole plant. For the first time I used the rice bags for weddings and probably less than 25% of the developing blossoms actually opened and produced fruit. Usually the tip just died off and the bag fell off. I tried this on my tomatoes also. Maybe having smaller bags would help, but I was very disappointed with my results.

Has anyone ever tried those little zip-lock bags they sell for pills? I have been reading on the Fruit & Orchard Forum that they bag fruit to keep egg laying insects off the fruit. I wonder if one could bag blossoms the same way?

I have a question along these lines. My father-in-law gave me some seeds that he found out last year to be a Hot Banana pepper cross he apparently made by mistake. They have produced fine for 2 years since, staying the same heat, shape, color, etc.. Is it possible to create a hybrid that stays that way for good, cuz it seems as though that is what he has done? I saved a ton of seeds from it this year. I plan on growing enough plants of it next year (3-4) to be able to pickel a few jars worth.

new planter

Hi peppers self pollinate??, i am guessing if u bag the whole plant
do u ever pollinate the plant by hand first then bag the flower, branch or whole plant???

I think the little plastic bags might cause humidity problems/clumped pollen, but then again if you can glue a bud shut to induce self pollination (low success rate though) the bags may work to some extent.

I had poor results bagging individual buds with the little mesh wedding rice sachets (your 25% sounds about right), but very high pollination rate bagging the whole plant or large branches. I think the weight of the little bag and/or manipulation putting it on may cause damage and promote blossom drop. When half of a plant was bagged it had comparable fruitset to the unbagged half. I was surprised and very pleased with the results, especially when I ended up with dozens and dozens of little pea sized cumari fruits each having only a handfull of seeds.

Roadkill, You can pollinate with self-pollen by hand and then bag the same way you do when creating hybrids but you either have to open a mature bud or get to the newly open blossom before a bee does. There is a good chance that fiddling with the blossoms will cause them to abort so its just a lot easier to bag buds.