I am gonna try growing Hybrid Gypsy peppers. I am gonna start them from seed and I want to collect the seeds from them to grow next year or try growing them indoors. Will I get Gypsy peppers from their seeds or is a waste to try and collect them to grow more plants later? Also, same question for sweet pickling peppers.
You shouldn't save seed from hybrid vegetables because they won't produce 'true' in the next generation but revert back to one of the parent plants used to hybridise your Gypsy. The same will apply if your sweet pickling peppers are also hybrids. If you have a 'true' pepper plant then you should allow it to ripen until they become red. Cut the pepper pod in half and scrape the seed from a cavity onto a piece of paper. Spread out the seed and dry thoroughly before placing in a storage container.
Well that is kind of a bummer but is also intriguing. I might just have to save the seeds just to see what kind of pepper I get from them. Even though it won't be a Gypsy it will be a nice little surprise and may still be an edible growable pepper.
From what I understand you can turn that hybrid into an heirloom by choosing the best peppers off the plant. The seed produced by the hybrid may revert back to the original plants, but you can plant them to see what comes out of them. Pick the best peppers when they are ripe and harvest their seeds. You keep doing this year after year. The goal is to pick the seeds from plants that produce the most and produce early. This way you can grow the best plants you can. If I am wrong about any of this, please correct me. This is just how I understand things.
No you're certainly not wrong but it takes approx 7-8 years to produce these plants. If you have the patience then it could very well be worth doing. :-D
We will see how they come back because I will likely try it. I think it will be fun just to see what plants they have hybrid together and there is always the chance that it is not actually a hybrid after all, have seen this in other plants that were labeled as hybrid, like a couple roses I have. 7-8 years is not as bad as I thought to get an heirloom variety. I figured a good 20 years.
It will not be an heirloom variety in 7-8 years. IF the plants have stabilized and make the same peppers each year, then what you have is an Open-Pollinated variety. Keep them in your family and/or neighborhood for 20-30 years and they will really be an heirloom. Another thing to think about is you will lose whatever quality the Gypsy folks thought made them superior. It could be disease resistance, yield, height, anything. Why not look thru the pepper seed catalogs and find an OP pepper that looks like the gypsy and plant them? Then all you have to worry about is not letting them cross, but that's gonna be there regardless.
