Distance for Pepper plants

I have a Cayenne Plant that I would like to save the seeds from, but I am afraid it crossbred with my other pepper plants. My Cayenne is on my patio (potted) about 75 feet from the other peppers in the garden. Is this too close? Will the cayenne produce true next year?

I think 50 feet or more would do the trick, so you should be fine. I've grown out pepper seeds from chile plants that were much closer together than that, and most of them seemed to be true to parent, but I'm sure that varies with the amount of wind or insect activity.

Peppers will cross-pollinate like crazy. Seems the pollen is candy to some insects. You can get lucky with the distance you mentioned...especially if there's some other pollen bearing plant blooming in between, but Seed Savers Exchange reccomends 500 ft or caging plants..or bagging blossoms to ensure purity.

The blossoms are 'perfect', meaning that male and female parts are contained on the same flower and it is capable of pollinating itself. If caged, the insects can't get to the flowers to mix up the pollen. It's not wind-borne, so insects are your culprit. The motion from a gentle breeze will move the pollen down to the ovary to form a pepper.

Bagging is easy...get some old pantyhose and gently 'bag' the blossom branch just before it opens. Leave in place while the flowers bloom. You might give the plant a shake a couple times a day to help move the pollen. When the flowers fade, remove the bag and mark that group of baby peppers with yarn so that you can remember which ones were the pure ones.

You can get lucky if you don't isolate, but genetic changes are very subtle sometimes, and do not show up in the next generation...or, it could be changes in the plant, as opposed to the fruit itself. Everything that makes that pepper unique is contained in the seed...from what the fruit looks and tastes like (obvious) to plant form, days to mature,or resistance to drought...so, it is important to consider all of these things when saving seeds.

Hope this helps.

If you're just looking to save seeds for home garden use and not trying to maintain a pure variety, you should do fine growing out the seeds you saved this year. It all depends on what level of purity & isolation you are trying to attain. I assumed it was the end of the season for you, so you no longer had time to get mature fruit from a new blossom. I'm glad Melody explained how to isolate them properly. Thanks, Melody!

I didn't manage to bag blossoms this year as I'd intended, but I still saved seeds to grow out next year, and I'll offer the seeds to anyone who wants to try them -- with the understanding that they may or may not be approximately true to type.

Hey, Melody... Do you know if C. chinense will cross pollinate with C. anuum? If not, then at least I can count on my habanero seeds producing hab plants.....

They'll cross pollinate just like any other pepper...sorry. Could make for some very deadly bells.....or some flaming cayennes...or some milder habs.

C. chinense is sometimes not even considered a seperate species in some groups. It's not even listed in Suzanne Ashworth's 'Seed to Seed'

Thanks for the info, Melody. I did check my copy of _Seed to Seed_, so I'm glad you knew what Suzanne Ashworth didn't bother to say!

Well, we'll see what happens with the seeds I saved. I did try to pick peppers for seed saving that were situated furthest away from other varieties and were low and toward the center of the plant to reduce the possibility of wind cross-pollination, but of course that doesn't guard at all against insect pollination. I've been lucky in the past, but.... well, we shall see!