u/RespectTheTree

Hey everyone! I’m u/RespectTheTree, a founding moderator of r/pepperbreeding.

This is our new home for pepper breeding, genetics, selection, and curiosity-driven experimentation, from backyard crosses to long-arc pre-breeding projects. Whether you’re here to make hotter peppers, better peppers, weirder peppers, or just understand why peppers do what they do, you’re in the right place.

This community exists to talk openly about the process: what works, what fails, what surprises you, and what you learn along the way.

What to Post Post anything you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or inspiring, including:

• breeding projects (successful or not)
• crosses you’re working on or thinking about
• phenotype photos, weird segregants, or stability questions
• genetics, inheritance, or trait discussions
• seed saving, selection methods, or grow-out notes
• questions from beginners and deep dives from veterans alike

If it’s about peppers and you’re thinking critically about them, it belongs here.

Community Vibe We’re aiming for curious, constructive, and generous. This is not a hype subreddit and not a marketplace first. It’s a place to learn in public, share knowledge, and respect that everyone is somewhere different on the path.

Ask good questions. Answer thoughtfully. Be kind. Don’t hoard insight.

How to Get Started

1. Introduce yourself in the comments below. Tell us what you grow or what you want to learn.
2. Post something today. A simple question can spark a great discussion.
3. If you know someone who would love this kind of community, invite them.
4. Interested in helping out? We’ll be looking for additional moderators as things grow, feel free to reach out.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let’s make r/pepperbreeding a place where good questions get better answers, and peppers get weirder in the best possible way.

🌶️

In short, it would be advantageous to have someone who can grow a handful of plants from 2-5 varieties under insect netting, each year. There are also tiers for the level of experience and involvement someone may want.

At the most basic you would provide ample space to each mother plant, a good fertilizer regime, scout for disease, and generally have good maintenance practices. Outdoor, in-ground is where my mind is at, but I am open to containers provided the conditions are ideal. After harvest, seeds will undergo a germination test to assess viability, and we'll do a purity test before sales (so seeds produced in 2027 would probably get sold in 2028). Trust is the brand, and we won't sell unknown quality seed. This person would need to be in the US, however if you have some special experience and you live outside the US - let's talk! The idea is that you take on the marginal risk and overhead of seed production for the promise of some negotiable percent of seed sales for those varieties.

In a perfect world, you would have a small farm with the ability to grow a handful of plants from 4-5 varieties under insect netting. You would also have expertise in horticulture with the ability to reliably produce high-quality seed and to run a harvest evaluation program under my direction. I would give you some guarantee of sales for a certain number of years on varieties where you provided the work to demonstrate the variety is high-quality and compares favorably to similar varieties. Assistance on this level would be a higher percentage of sales on those varieties, plus a guarantee of sales for X-number of years. We can discuss what you would find fair.

I can also accommodate someone who has significant space and experience who wants to lead a trialing program to identify seed for sale, and to support the varieties coming out the breeding program. For this you would need the ability to grow 5-10+ varieties per year, 5-25 plants of each, and record harvest yields for selected varieties. A greenhouse would be ideal to start the lines, and excellent maintenance practices would be required. I would require you to collect harvest, plant, and fruit data for varieties, and then we would decide on what to sell on my platform. Compensation would be commensurate with experience.

\### Who am I to write such grandiose things on a social media platform?

I am a classically trained plant breeder with a PhD in horticulture science. I have a decade of experience breeding edible crops, project management, plant contract law, and business development. I founded Open Pepper Breeding 8 years ago to create a platform for science communication and community-building efforts to develop new pepper varieties. These varieties are released in the spirit of open-source software, but as the IP environment around plants is not at all similar to those around software and writing, we use MTA agreements ("bag tag laws") to restrict commercialization of our varieties in the US and achieve similar results. We support and embrace the cottage grower and food industries, we simply restrict others from selling our seed. We currently have half a dozen SKUs developed from our in-house genetics, and are expanding the scope of the business in 2027 with the launch of a new highly integrated website for seed sales, with a custom back end for inventory tracking and order fulfillment (as well as my own software for pepper breeding so I can do fun things like calculate BLUPs).

In short, it would be advantageous to have someone who can grow a handful of plants from 2-5 varieties under insect netting, each year. There are also tiers for the level of experience and involvement someone may want.

At the most basic you would provide ample space to each mother plant, a good fertilizer regime, scout for disease, and generally have good maintenance practices. Outdoor, in-ground is where my mind is at, but I am open to containers provided the conditions are ideal. After harvest, seeds will undergo a germination test to assess viability, and we'll do a purity test before sales (so seeds produced in 2027 would probably get sold in 2028). Trust is the brand, and we won't sell unknown quality seed. This person would need to be in the US, however if you have some special experience and you live outside the US - let's talk! The idea is that you take on the marginal risk and overhead of seed production for the promise of some negotiable percent of seed sales for those varieties.

In a perfect world, you would have a small farm with the ability to grow a handful of plants from 4-5 varieties under insect netting. You would also have expertise in horticulture with the ability to reliably produce high-quality seed and to run a harvest evaluation program under my direction. I would give you some guarantee of sales for a certain number of years on varieties where you provided the work to demonstrate the variety is high-quality and compares favorably to similar varieties. Assistance on this level would be a higher percentage of sales on those varieties, plus a guarantee of sales for X-number of years. We can discuss what you would find fair.

I can also accommodate someone who has significant space and experience who wants to lead a trialing program to identify seed for sale, and to support the varieties coming out the breeding program. For this you would need the ability to grow 5-10+ varieties per year, 5-25 plants of each, and record harvest yields for selected varieties. A greenhouse would be ideal to start the lines, and excellent maintenance practices would be required. I would require you to collect harvest, plant, and fruit data for varieties, and then we would decide on what to sell on my platform. Compensation would be commensurate with experience.

### Who am I to write such grandiose things on a social media platform?

I am a classically trained plant breeder with a PhD in horticulture science. I have a decade of experience breeding edible crops, project management, plant contract law, and business development. I founded Open Pepper Breeding 8 years ago to create a platform for science communication and community-building efforts to develop new pepper varieties. These varieties are released in the spirit of open-source software, but as the IP environment around plants is not at all similar to those around software and writing, we use MTA agreements ("bag tag laws") to restrict commercialization of our varieties in the US and achieve similar results. We support and embrace the cottage grower and food industries, we simply restrict others from selling our seed. We currently have half a dozen SKUs developed from our in-house genetics, and are expanding the scope of the business in 2027 with the launch of a new highly integrated website for seed sales, with a custom back end for inventory tracking and order fulfillment (as well as my own software for pepper breeding so I can do fun things like calculate BLUPs).

Just curious, I have needs. The very basic is that it would be advantageous to have someone who can grow a handful of plants from 2-5 varieties under insect netting, each year. You would provide ample space to each mother plant, a good fertilizer regime, scout for disease, and generally have good maintenance practices. Outdoor, in-ground is where my mind is at, but I am open to containers provided the conditions are ideal. Seeds will undergo a germination test to assess viability, and we'll do a purity tests before sales (so seeds produced in 2027 would probably get sold in 2028). Trust is the brand, and we won't sell unknown quality seed. This person would need to be in the US, however if you have some special experience and you live outside the US - let's talk! The idea is that you take on the marginal risk and overhead of seed production for the promise of some percent of seed sales for those varieties.

In a perfect world, you would have a small farm with the ability to grow a handful of plants from 4-5 varieties under insect netting. You would also have expertise in horticulture with the ability to reliably produce high-quality seed and to run a harvest evaluation program under my direction. I would give you some guarantee of sales for a certain number of years on selected varieties. Assistance on this level would be a higher percentage for those varieties you contribute on.

I can also accommodate someone who has significant space and experience who wants to lead trialing varieties for sale. For this you would need the ability to grow 5-10+ varieties, 5-25 plants of each, and harvest all material for evaluation. A greenhouse would be ideal to start the lines, and excellent maintenance practices would be required. I would require you to collect harvest, plant, and fruit data for varieties, and then we would decide on what to sell on my platform. You would receive fair compensation as a percent of sales on those varieties you produce seed for - or whatever arrangement you find suitable.