Enjoya the first striped sweet pepper, how gorgeous are these!
Wow, I think they are just beautiful; the fruits ripen from green and take on amazing flame streaks. The fruits look like they are red on yellow and the pattern on each fruit is slightly different which makes them even more visually appealing.
Last year I was captivated by how pretty these fruits are, when I saw their picture in a newspaper write up about them. I was unable to find any then, despite them being marketed through the supermarket Asda in the UK. I did finally locate some about ten days ago, I bought three. They are pricey at over £1 each, but I couldn't resist trying some and hoping for some seed inside to save too.
Bonus, they are tasty too!
The history behind the pepper is a little confusing, some sources say the pepper was found 2 years ago Hortidaily and here D. Mail report Asda have been working with growers for the last seven years to produce them?
Reportedly they are growing these on grafted plants, I hope this isn't an indication that they are only vegetatively propagated? I very much hope this is a heritable trait passed on through saved seeds. With this in mind (although it is a bit late in the season to be starting peppers off), I’ve sown some of the seeds I saved from the bought fruit.
What to expect, well if the stripes are a heritable trait and it is a stable variety, then I will have plants the same as the parent and with stripey fruit. Though whether Enjoya is a stable variety or a F1 is another matter.
If Enjoya is an F1 and assuming the stripes can be passed on through seed, then there will be two outcomes depending on dominance. If the 'pepper fruit stripe' trait is dominant then all the fruiting plants will have stripes, though plant and fruits will differ from plant to plant and parent. If it is recessive then as long as I grow enough F2 plants, I should find some with striped fruits, though again none will be identical to each other or the parent.
If the stripes can only be passed on vegetatively then all my plants, regardless of being from an open pollinated or an F1 variety, will be without stripes.
Wish me luck!
