[CH] African Fish Pepper
Jose Cisneros (jcisn@novagate.com)
Sun, 25 Aug 2002 10:01:11 -0400
Hey Chile-Heads
I was wondering if any one on the list has had any
experience growing African Fish peppers?
This was my first year for these puppies ( guppies? ).
( A little background, for those of you that have never
grown this pepper)
The plants are fairly short and bushy with many small to
medium sized variegated leaves ( quite pretty IMNSHO )
Some of the leaves are a pure white.
The peppers are shaped somewhat like an upside down tear-drop.
Approximately 3/4 inch (1.9 cm) in diameter and 1 inch (2.54 cm)
in length, this of course varies somewhat from pepper to pepper.
The color of the peppers before they are ripe is also variegated.
Yellow background with pale green stripes which changes to a
two toned red.
And they are Danged Hot! :-)
My question is this; Why does this pepper plant exhibit such strong
phyical differences when stressed?
I had two of the plants come very close to dying, they dropped
all of their leaves, (I had neglected to water them).
In an attempt to revive them I started to water them again.
There was nothing left of the plants but green sticks.
The plants did revive, but with a difference.
The leaves are no longer variegated, the plants have grown taller,
and are nowhere near as bushy as the plants that were not stressed.
An the strangest thing of all is that the peppers that the stressed
plants are producing bare no resemblance to the peppers the unstressed plants
are producing.
They are, in the unripe state, I haven't seen a ripe one yet, about
2.625 inches long ( 6.66cm ) by 1/2 inch ( 1.27cm ) wide at the base.
They look like a large lumpy seranno.
To look at these two plants together (stressed and unstressed) I
would think, if I didn't know better, that they were two different
varieties of peppers.
What causes a plant to exhibit variegated leaves and fruit?
Why does it revert to, what I suspect is an earlier and more robust
form under stress?
Anybody know?
In any event, next years pepper crop will be interesting.
I plan on saving seeds from each type and starting a few plants.
Perhaps I should do a stressed and unstressed test with each.
Regards
Jose