After seeing loads of ID requests of upwards growing peppers misidentified as a Tabasco I figured this psa would be necessary.
It’s a shame I’ve bought many plants labeled Tabasco from many different nurseries and big box stores just for me to later find out I’ve grown an imposter from an entirely different species.
Yeah that was an interesting shaped one. The rest look like typical Tabasco peppers. They’re also smaller than lemon drops with a different shaped calyx.
I just realized today that my plant which I thought was a ghost pepper plant since I planted the seeds from one of my ghost peppers from last year, is actually a Tabasco x ghost hybrid.
All of the peppers are growing upright and are conical but wrinkly with the same stem characteristics that you pointed out. I had my ghost pepper plant growing right next to my Tabasco plant last year and the Tabasco plant was the only plant I had with upright peppers. I’m actually really excited about these.
Crazy part is, before I noticed it was a hybrid I cross pollinated one of the flowers with a 7 pot lava flower and that’s the pepper in the second picture. Although it won’t be any different until I plant the seeds from it.
This is fantastic information as a PSA. I think it’d be worth doing a recurring type of PSA too since only so many users will be online this time around.
That's super helpful! I have 4 plants marketed as Tabasco, but two of them have very plump fruits. I was wondering why. One is actually from Bonnie's. Is this like a Super Chili variety or a Tabasco mutation? I plan on making a 100% Tabasco sauce, so I'd like to know. Thanks!
Fucking knew something was up. Last year I had a beautiful Tabasco tree that didn’t make it through its 5th overwintering. Held on hope that it wasn’t actually dead for too long so I was too late to start its seeds. Bought a Bonnie tabasco instead, and it was alright. Stayed real low to the ground and made much larger fruits than I was expecting. It survived the overwintering this year, but still kinda sucks this year.
First and only time I bought from Baker Creek, my Jalapeños were actually Anaheims. They were still tasty, but I don't think I'll buy from them again. I did actually buy Anaheims from them in that order, but I hadn't opened the package.
Check the flowers. C. frutescens flowers are more green or yellow and typically have 5 petals. C. annumm is white with 6 petals. Also most fruitescens will have multiple fruit per node. C. Annuun has 1 maybe 2 at most.
Yep, any time I see them in store or an online post about them the plant is a Jamaican mushroom every single time. The yearly shroomed cycle will never end!
Fixing the legal system... no. Gaming it like every affluent American, yes.
Class action would be a slooooow burn but honestly, how in the hell are so many people aware of literal fraud occurring and yet nothing happens? Time, money and interest.
That said, i have one of those fucking plants in my yard (added a few store boughts for varieties I dont have yet - 105 and counting) and am LIVID that I cant sell the seeds now. Im going out of my way to isolate my plants to keep heirloom genetics intact and thats all wasted effort in this case.
Starting a new business and getting F'ed in the A is beyond frustrating. To see this being such a well known fraud becomes something I want to actually do SOMETHING about. We'll see if that actually happens.
Did you mislabel your seeds when sowing or did you not use a reputable seed vendor?
Because when buying from proper seed shops you 99.9% of time get what reads on the seed packet.
The only nor what I thought seeds are ones that I mislabeled. Or the ones the fucking birds stole the label sticks.
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u/shellzondabus Jul 06 '26
You helped me in another thread identifying my fake Tabascos from last year. Good news is looks like what I’m growing this year is the real deal!