Jalapeño Pepper Varieties From Johnny's

We're here today to talk about the Johnny's Selected Seeds Jalapeño Assortment. A few general discussion points we'll have today. We'll talk about fruit size on the different varieties. Some of the newer varieties have large 4 to 5 inch long fruits. Some of the older varieties, 2.5, maybe up to 3–3.5.

We'll talk about days to maturity.

We'll talk about plant type. Some varieties will have smaller plants, which will give you a concentrated set so you can harvest a lot of fruits at once. Other varieties have what we call continuous set plants. They're almost like an indeterminate tomato. They'll get really large and they'll produce a lot more fruit over a longer period of time, but less concentrated.

And then also we'll talk about disease resistance. There are two major diseases that peppers in general, and jalapeños included, get in the U.S. One is bacterial leaf spot. And that disease starts with spots on the leaves, which makes sense given the name. And then eventually you can get leaf drop and then the plants can even die so you'll lose the crop. Another major disease is called Phytophthora. And Phytophthora starts in the stems and the plants and can get into the fruits and cause them to rot. So again, you can lose your entire crop of peppers that way. So we have varieties that have resistance to both of those diseases. There's another minor disease also called potato virus Y, but that's not nearly as important as a Phytophthora and the bacterial leaf spot.

That's the overview and now we'll go into a discussion of some of the individual varieties.

'Early Jalapeño'

The first variety we're going to talk about here is 'Early Jalapeño', which comes in at 60 days. You can see the fruits are relatively smaller, 2 to 2.5 inches. The good point about this variety is it's extremely early. You can see all the red fruits here, whereas none of the other varieties have red fruits yet. They also tend to check relatively quickly. Checking are these little brown cracks on the fruits that go lengthwise. Traditionally for jalapeños, that was a sign that they were ready. Another way to tell already is if you squeeze the fruits gently, you'll hear a cracking sound. That means the wall is thick enough for harvest.

'Jalafuego'

Then the next variety here is 'Jalafuego'. This variety is available as organic or conventional seeds. It's 70 days, and it has high resistance to bacterial leaspot, races 1 through 3, 7 and 8, and potato virus Y, races 0 and 2. The fruits for this variety are around 3 - 3.5 inches. You can see it has some checking, but it's a little bit slower to check than 'Early Jalapeño'. If you were to harvest it promptly, you could get fruits that really don't have checking. This to me, I think, is a really nice size for a jalapeno. It's traditional. It's not huge. Real good, I think, for a fresh market or for home garden sales. The downside, since the fruits are a little smaller, if you're picking by weight, it's going to take you a little bit longer to pick a pound of fruits of 'Jalafuego' than some of the larger varieties.

'Pantera'

The next variety here is 'Pantera'. This comes in at 4.5 to 5 inches long. You can compare it here to 'Jalafuego', it's considerably bigger. It also can be picked smooth like this. It will check eventually. It comes in at 70 days. It has high resistance to bacterial leafspot, races 1 through 3 and 7 and 8.

'Jedi'

Then our next variety here is called 'Jedi'. You look at 'Jedi' and 'Pantera', they're both very similar varieties. 'Jedi' is probably a little shorter, maybe 4 to 4.5 inches. Same disease package. High resistance to bacterial leafspot races 1 through 3 and 7 and 8. The big difference is right now we only have 'Jedi' as treated seeds, whereas 'Pantera' we have untreated. Otherwise, these varieties are very similar. They both have very large, continuous set plants.

Continuous set characteristics is particularly important if you live in an area with a long growing season. If you have a long growing season, you'll get larger harvests off 'Jedi' and 'Pantera' just because that plant will keep growing and keep producing many fruits.

'PS11435807'

The next variety here is a catchy name, 'PS11435807'. We just call it 5807. Its main claim to fame is it has intermediate resistance to Phytophthora. One of the downsides of putting that disease resistance into the 5807 is you can see that the fruits are quite a bit wider than the traditional jalapeño. It's kind of fat, a little bit bloated looking, so I don't think it's quite as attractive. But if you're growing in an area that has Phytophthora and you grow 5807, you'll know you'll get a crop. Whereas if you have a variety that doesn't have the Phytophthora resistance, you could lose it to Phytophthora. The plant habit on 5807, it's kind of a medium-sized plant with a sort of a concentrated set, not quite as much as 'Jalafuego' or 'Early Jalapeño', but a more concentrated set than Jedi. So again, that's 5807.

'SVHJ5816'

Then the last variety to talk about in our assortment also has a catchy name, 'SVHJ5816'. We just call that 5816. It comes in at 70 days, about the same as the 5807. Its main claim to fame is it has intermediate resistance to bacterial leafspot races 1 through 10, which means, again, if you're in an area that has high disease pressure for bacterial leafspot, it could very well be you get a good crop from 5816, whereas if you grew 'Jedi' or 'Pantera', you could lose the crop. And again, if you look at the fruit size and shape compared to 'Jedi', you're definitely getting the bigger, fatter fruit than you would with 'Jedi'. So I think they're not quite as attractive, but I still think they're nice. And again, if you have a lot of disease pressure, that would definitely be the variety to grow.

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