He does not know genetics. To have 1.6 percent visual variation in a plant line infers that about 1 plant in 8 is still genetically unstable. Also, it is obvious some seed lots were sold that very high levels of variation. The visual variation gives only a little guidance to other traits like heat level. In other words, the plant may visually conform to the expected shape and the fruit may conform, but the heat level can vary in a wide range. I'm not knocking the pepper, just pointing out that 36 in 2200 is a VERY HIGH level of genetic instability.

Carolina Reaper Cuda911March 25, 2013 Hey, new to this site, but far from new to growing. Habajalokia or whatever his name is killed the last Carolina Reaper thread, so resurrecting it. HOUZZ "lifted" the 150 post limit so I'm resurrecting the original.

Genetics can get very complicated and there are rules upon rules with exceptions to the rules. But for simplicity sake, a genotype is all the genes you inherited from your parents. A phenotype is the genes that you express (not necessarily what you see with your eyes but the characteristics that you express). For example, if your mother has blonde hair and your father has brown hair and you end up with brown hair then you have both blond and brown hair genes (genotype) but you are expressing the brown hair gene (brown hair phenotype). It does not have to be visual characteristics same thing goes for diseases and everything else. Now if you have a child with someone who also has brown hair but has a blond hair parent, it is possible that you will pass on the blond hair trait and have a blonde hair child even though you both have brown hair. That child would have a blonde hair phenotype. Like I said this is not a perfect example because there are rules upon rules and exceptions to the rules but it should help understand the difference between phenotype and genotype. Some genes are sex linked, some genes tend to be expressed together(blond hair blue eyes), it depends where the gene is on what chromosome, if the father has the gene, if the mother has the gene, and what sex the offspring is, some genes are dominant, some genes are recessive ect ect ect. Genotype- all the genes from father and mother that got passed on to you and in turn can be passed on to your children Phenotype- what characteristics or genes you express ( hair color , eye color, fast, slow, skinny fat, smart, dumb, ect)

Me too! I'm really glad I started the peter pepper on the laughing Buddha statue as a test run for the skull. I feel like I'm learning more on how to keep a nice tight root grip on a very irregular surface that should really come in handy later on. I've started a bit of pull down on it. I'm pretty sure that the timing is okay and that it'll work out (or I wouldn't have done it), but I should learn how well it maintains it's grip, which will translate later into how long I should wait to do the same on the skull. Sure, I could just grow peppers, but where's the fun if I'm not pushing myself?