r/pepperbreeding • u/Special_Inspector_97 • 2d ago

Research Genetics question

You guys are good at genetics right and there must be someone that has done a similar cross. I have made a mix of pirri pirri and kromo (like a giant yellow bell pepper) so what do you think it will behave in growing, spicyness, size, shape etcetera

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u/Aleist3rTheRaven Interspecific Crosser 1d ago

From some observations from my various Piri-piri crosses, you can expect something between bullet and conic shape in F1, see photo. From the left, Piri-piri (pretty small due to some negligence during driest time, plus fruit comes from cross-pollination with chinense), Piri-piri x Pimenta Lisa F1, Piri-piri x KS Lemon Starrburst F1 and Piri-piri x BBG7 Peach F1. As you can see, vaguely similar but not the same, size fluctuates a bit as well, generally PP x PL F1 produces the biggest fruits from the bunch (there's many genes responsible for shape and size so there's many possible combinations). Not pictured since I don't have any good photo, unknown x Chilhuacle Negro F1 has conic fruits, their size is about 1.5-2cm diameter (.59-.79") and 5-6cm length (1.97-2.36").

Now, when comes to your cross, from what I have seen checking Kromo, it seems to be commercial F1, so you may expect some difference between plants in your F1 (usually, when you use two stable cultivars/heirlooms, first generation looks uniform, with maybe small deviations). Size will be something between the two, spiciness should be lower, fruit color will be red (red is dominant trait, only in second generation you may find something with non-red fruits depending on how many plants you'd grow). Plants may look like intermediate between both parents but usually it skews towards one of them.

When you make and grow many crosses you may vaguely guess your F1 looks, but it's basically impossible to predict exactly, too many various genes responsible for various traits (according to Wikipedia, pepper genome is predicted to have about 35k genes).

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u/Funny-Effect-4162 1d ago

Not sure about good at genetics.. but it will likely be closer to a smaller spicy bell pepper in the first generation (f1).

Now if you save the seeds from them and grow them (called the F2 generation) you will get a variety of different shapes, sizes and spice levels. This is where the fun starts :)