Planting black pepper

[KarenRei]

Haven't gotten a response in the other thread, so I'll try giving this its own thread.

I recently got some fresh black pepper - actually most of it is green, but some of it black - none of it dried or roasted.  I'd like to try germination if possible.  Does anyone have any clue how one would go about this, has anyone here done it before? 

[KarenRei]

Huh?  Why was this moved to off topic?  It's a perrenial woody edible fruiting tropical plant, and I was asking advice on its cultivation.

I'm quite confused here.... could someone clarify what the purpose of this forum is?  Are only sweet fruits allowed under discussion?

[plantlover13]

Maybe it's considered a spice?

No clue on germination. Google?

[murahilin]

I usually allow spices in the main discussion.

I think we need to come to a consensus on whether spices should be allowed. I've posted about a few different spices already.

My vote is for spices being allowed.

I do not have any first hand experience germinating black pepper but I did a quick google search and saw a lot of information. Try google and see if that helps.

[KarenRei]

I usually allow spices in the main discussion.

I think we need to come to a consensus on whether spices should be allowed. I've posted about a few different spices already.

My vote is for spices being allowed.

I do not have any first hand experience germinating black pepper but I did a quick google search and saw a lot of information. Try google and see if that helps.

I did google and it wasn't useful, hence the reason for the post.  Pages that I saw either began with "start by buying pepper seeds" or "start by buying pepper cuttings".  I have raw unprocessed pepper, ranging from green to black.

If pepper is banned, what about, say, vanilla?  Quararibea funebris?  Moringa?  I assume nutmeg's right out, despite that that's as tropical of a nut tree as you could get.  There's a thread on ginger right now at the top of the list.

Basically, I just found the off-topic classification weird and disappointing.  We're not talking parsley here... black pepper is an edible, perreneal, woody tropical.  It's not some common garden plant.

[shaneatwell]

I usually allow spices in the main discussion.

I think we need to come to a consensus on whether spices should be allowed. I've posted about a few different spices already.

My vote is for spices being allowed.

My vote, not that it matters, is to add an 'other plants' section in the Everything Else area. Many of us have migrated from other forums like GW or Cloudforest and have significant interest in non-tropical-fruit growing and no other good forum to kick ideas around in. See my posts on tree strawberry, which similarly got moved into the off topic area among the debates on global warming and war in syria.

[Tim]

I moved it here because it's a spice posted on the main Tropical Fruit board. 
If we can come to consensus whether to leave it on the main board, I'll move it back.

Admins will have final saying in this but let's see where the poll goes

[plantlover13]

The "everything else" seems good. Ornamentals would fit well there. Spices, however,seem that they should be in the main one.

[jcaldeira]

Leave the note where it was.   I always thought black pepper was a dried fruit around a seed, anyway.

In general, suggest NOT moving a note from where the original poster wrote it.  We don't need any hard rule on this.  Are tomatoes and watermelons fruits?  Do we allow moringa and ginger notes on the fruit board?    No need to sort it all out on a casual forum.

[HIfarm]

First, my thoughts on the "spice" issue.  John is technically right, pepper is a dried fruit that is used as a spice so it should be allowed in the main forum in any event.  Second, it seems like a lot of people here have interest in spices so why not allow spices in the main forum?  If someone doesn't care about the topic, don't open it.  Not everyone on the list cares about jabos or perhaps even mangoes (I know, heresy) so if they are not interested, they do not have to open the thread.  There are also a lot of posting about nuts, should those also not be allowed?

Back to Karen's post, most people who are seriously interested in growing pepper will not grow it from seed.  It is by nature a dioecious plant.  Commercial clones are selected for quality, disease resistance, and for the fact that most are hermaphrodites.  If you take seed from a commercial plant, it will often revert to dioecious.  Finally, the bad news (if accurate).  According to Ravindran's book on black pepper: "Pepper is recacitrant and viability is only retained for about a week.  Storing at 5oC after removing the seed coat prolongs viability.  If sown within a few days after harvesting, ripe seeds will germinate easily in 20-25 days.  Ghawas and Maaraf (1983) showed that seeds stored in polybags, at 4oC and 42 percent RH retained viability for 40 days."  I see a lot of people offering black pepper seed.  If the above info is accurate, germination must be extremely low.

John

[TREESNMORE]

I grow a few plants from cuttings .They root easie

[KarenRei]

Back to Karen's post, most people who are seriously interested in growing pepper will not grow it from seed.  It is by nature a dioecious plant.  Commercial clones are selected for quality, disease resistance, and for the fact that most are hermaphrodites.  If you take seed from a commercial plant, it will often revert to dioecious.  Finally, the bad news (if accurate).  According to Ravindran's book on black pepper: "Pepper is recacitrant and viability is only retained for about a week.  Storing at 5oC after removing the seed coat prolongs viability.  If sown within a few days after harvesting, ripe seeds will germinate easily in 20-25 days.  Ghawas and Maaraf (1983) showed that seeds stored in polybags, at 4oC and 42 percent RH retained viability for 40 days."  I see a lot of people offering black pepper seed.  If the above info is accurate, germination must be extremely low.

John

Thanks, HLfarm    I live in Iceland so seed is FAR easier than live plants.  So a reversion is a risk I'll have to take.  The pepper is fresh, it's not dried out.  It was 100% sealed in plastic when I got it, and all of the fruit there appeared to have been air-mailed from vietnam (same sort of labels, same source, same packaging, etc).

My big concern is that there's the thin fleshy layer over the seeds.  But the seeds aren't that hard.  It would take a tremendous amount of work I'd think to try to remove the flesh without damaging the seed.  So I could plant it with the fruit and all, but... I don't know if that's best.

[Mike T]

I am always hacking my black peppers back as they are very vigorous and the runner set roots in the ground easily.Most seeds from mine don't sprout just a small % but a few years ago the whole crop of seeds was viable for a single season.Some sprout almost immediately and others just lying around on the ground sprout up to 3 months later.You don't scrape flesh off the peppercorns before planting.

[maui guy]

In Hawaii we have a variety that is used fresh. The locals often place the fruit in water to make pepper water for cooking . My wife takes the fresh fruit & adds to food  just as she would if was using onions or garlic .  Maui is tropical & we use the fruit!!

[Mike T]

The green and red fruit of all varieties can be eaten fresh or dried. I saw trials of numerous types and there seemed to be only a little variation in all characters.

[fruitlovers]

Pepper is usually started from cuttings. It can be started from seed but it's much harder and slower, and seeds keep for very short time and have low germination rate. Plant it fruit and all and hope for the best.

[KarenRei]

I am always hacking my black peppers back as they are very vigorous and the runner set roots in the ground easily.Most seeds from mine don't sprout just a small % but a few years ago the whole crop of seeds was viable for a single season.Some sprout almost immediately and others just lying around on the ground sprout up to 3 months later.You don't scrape flesh off the peppercorns before planting.

Thanks!  I put about 50 corns (flesh and all) in the ground the other day, I'll put a couple hundred more in to up my odds.

I'm just hoping all these fruits from Vietnam aren't irradiated...

[KarenRei]

In Hawaii we have a variety that is used fresh. The locals often place the fruit in water to make pepper water for cooking . My wife takes the fresh fruit & adds to food  just as she would if was using onions or garlic .  Maui is tropical & we use the fruit!!

Hmm, interesting!  The only pepper I knew of that's native to Hawaii is kava (Piper methysticum), and I didn't think people ate the fruit.  Is it a different pepper species?  Checking out Wikipedia I see that there's actually a ton of species in the Piper genus - though I have no clue how many have edible fruit!

[HIfarm]

Hi Karen,

Piper is a large family but it seems like only a few species are really important as spices.  I did have a list somewhere (as I am hoping to plant a few different species) but I cannot locate it now.  Some of importance are: P. chaba, cubeba, guineense, & longum.  I think that there are a couple of others and I don't doubt that there are also others that a only used in certain localities.  It sounds like there is evidence that some of the Indian black pepper cultivars are actually interspecific hybrids.

Concerning Maui Guy's post, the pepper he is referring to is most likely black pepper (P. nigrum).  It is here but I am not sure if most of it came as cuttings or seedlings.  There is definitely seed grown cultivars here -- I recall a discussion with someone at the university where they said "you have to be careful of where you get your cuttings; some plants here bloom but never set fruit".  Evidently, this guy was not aware that P. nigrum is typically dioecious and those were probably male plants.

John

[KarenRei]

Thanks.  I wonder if I could simply keep a small rootbound male - how big do they have to be to bloom?

Vines are easy for me, I have no shortage of wall space and they catch the stray energy from my grow lights.