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Starting seed from dried peppers

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:49 am
by KathyDC
Hi all,

I made some chili the other day with dried peppers and saved seed from a bunch of them. I'm sure heat-drying would make the seeds less viable, but I'm curious if anybody has had any luck at all with starting seed from store-bought dried peppers?

I was thinking of doing a germination test with the ones I have. Maybe the paper towel method. Anybody have a good explainer for how to do that?

Thanks!

Kathy

Re: Starting seed from dried peppers

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:44 pm
by friedgreen51
Hi Kathy,
I have had success with 2 peppers that I was able to start from dried pepper seed. These were dried peppers I picked up at the local Hispanic grocery store. Each had lots of loose seed in each bag so I planted about 20 seed of each and had about 50 percent germination. The varieties were Chile de Arbol and Guajillo.

Re: Starting seed from dried peppers

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 2:18 pm
by worth1
friedgreen51 wrote: Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:44 pm Hi Kathy,
I have had success with 2 peppers that I was able to start from dried pepper seed. These were dried peppers I picked up at the local Hispanic grocery store. Each had lots of loose seed in each bag so I planted about 20 seed of each and had about 50 percent germination. The varieties were Chile de Arbol and Guajillo.
More germination for me same type peppers and place of purchase.
Just tossed them in the garden stirred soil around and watered for an experiment.

Re: Starting seed from dried peppers

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 3:52 pm
by slugworth
I did store bought dried peppers back in the 90's
A chinese variety.They grew fine.

Re: Starting seed from dried peppers

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:52 pm
by pepperhead212
I've had it work with some, but from others I haven't gotten a single sprout, out of a lot of seeds - like a tsp or more. I soaked them in saltpeter, and put them in my seed sprouter. Both were seeds from India, and I think that some spices from there (and elsewhere) are irradiated, to kill insects, before being exported. I also tried this with Indian coriander several times (they were not available in seed catalogs for a long time), and none sprouted, until I finally got some from a seed catalog.