Mysterious Hot Pepper

[Dave2000]

I bought a few seeds last year that were supposed to be Jamaican Chocolate Peppers. Most of them were, but I also ended up with a mystery pepper. At first glance the fruit looks a bit like Tabascos and the heat level is about the same, maybe a bit hotter, but the flavor isn't as sweet, very slightly smoky, and the fruit has a bit thicker, very shiny waxy looking walls and light cream colored seeds.

Also notable is that the fruit keeps for a very long time. The waxy skin seems to keep it from drying out, it can go multiple times as long sitting out as any other peppers I've grown and yet they don't rot nearly as soon either. The shape of the plant is also unique to me, it looks more like a tree with an umbrella canopy than others, though as pictured it started to bow a bit from the fruit and a few days of high wind.

Any help identifying this pepper is appreciated.

 

[catjac1975]

Your pepper looks like one sold commercially in nurseries in spring. Sorry don't know the name but it is very hot.
But I have to ask, what do you feed your potted plants to make them grow so luxuriously? Are you organic. Beautiful!!! Are they in a greenhouse?

 

[kitz]

Not sure of spelling but could it be a cayenne pepper. hot like fire.

 

[Dave2000]

They aren't cayenne, I grow those every year.

I wouldn't call that one luxurious, it got a late start as my others were about 2 months old when I sprouted that one. It was just sitting on my patio where it got a lot of morning and mid afternoon sun but was shaded by early evening.

I used a mix of potting soil and peat to start with, then transplanted into some cr@p topsoil I was trying to get rid of that had a lot of sand in it, mixed with the terrible clay soil from my back yard which had a little rotten away old mulch in it plus some better topsoil. It and others were pot-bound, the same plant types I put in the terrible clay dirt ground instead of pots ended up twice as big but part of the problem wasn't just being root bound, the amount of soil in the pot could not hold enough water and they'd start to wilt if they weren't watered twice a day.

I used 10-10-10 fertilizer, some ground egg shells, bone meal, a little epsom salt mixed in sometimes, sometimes added some coffee grounds, and very regular watering. No particular schedule to fertilizing, if I hadn't in a few days I would fertilize again a little at a time. I think my tap water was too alkaline though, they always shot up 2 inches quick after any day it rained. They almost did too well, by the end of the season I had two stakes holding them all up because the weight of the fruit was breaking branches off. Mainly I think what helped was plenty of nitrogen and calcium.

I don't think they would have grown as well if I were as far north as MA.

Some of them didn't do so well though, I seed more plants than I want then throw out the runts at the time of transplanting the rest into their final larger pots or the ground so what I end up with were the healthiest of the bunch.

 

[dickiebird]

Looks to me like a Serrano.

THANX RICH

 

[Dave2000]

It's much hotter, and smaller than a serrano, and I can buy those locally <>. It might be a hybrid, but if so, I wonder what.

 

[Dave2000]

Just heard back from the seed seller, it's a cross breed but no way to tell what.

 

[kitz]

You get to name it

 

[dickiebird]

Just heard back from the seed seller, it's a cross breed but no way to tell what.

Now you have this locally!!!!

THANX RICH

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

sort of looks like one i've seen called a rooster spur. or might be a thai dragon type. i know that one is considered hotter than a jalapeno.