Topic: Cross pollination

[Badger1]

I was told today that if I wanted to grow different varieties of chillies in the polytunnel (which I plan to do next year) I would have to seal it off from bees. Is this correct? :-\

[growmore]

Hi Badger, Welcome to the site..
I think you would be OK the first year in them growing true to type...

The problem of cross pollination would occur if you wanted to save seeds off these for further crops
For them to be true  and avoiding sports, I think You would have to grow each species in isolation.. 

Just shielding from bees would not stop them cross pollinating as this can be done by breeze.water spray and even tiny insects..I am no horticulturist, but this is my take on it .See what others think on here.. Jim

[john_miller]

  Excluding bees from a greenhouse only becomes important when you are trying to grow parthenocarpic fruit, such as modern greenhouse cucumbers. As far as I know there are no parthenocarpic chilli peppers. Indeed, all the chilli peppers available in the U.K. are grown outdoors somewhere in the world. It is obviously very difficult to avoid bees in that situation!
  If you intend growing varieties of chillis from one species and saving the seed you may need to exclude bees for the reasons Jim cites although chillis are complete flowers so will largely come true. If you are only growing one variety or varieties from different species then excluding bees will be less important or unimportant.

[Badger1]

Thanks for that - so basically I'm okay if I use fresh seed each year.

[growmore]

Hi badger ,Yes  You should be ok that way ..Jim