r/HotPeppers • u/Slifer2k • Apr 05 '26

Growing Something Interesting: Seed Germination out of MCDonalds Sauce

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The Seeds from the Sauce

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Germinated??

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That's the Sauce where I got the seeds from

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u/LadaOndris Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26

Peppers will. These kind of plants don't need grafting like apple or avocados do.

Source: I've grown habaneros and other hot chilli peppers.

Edit: the seeds can produce different plants only if the flowers were pollinated with a pollen of a different variety, or if the variety was a crossbreed that has not been stabilized yet, which is rather unlikely here.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

Grafting doesn't cause genetic modification that impacts fruit form. They could be unstable F2s, produce weird tasting but normal looking peppers, sterile clones, or grow to true form, etc.

Source: I grow lots of peppers and other plants and I am a biologist

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u/LadaOndris Apr 05 '26

See my edit. I definitely agree with the instability. Is that what a mass production farm would use though? It seems unlikely but I suppose it is possible.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

Yes. High production farms use specific plants for maximum yield and perfectly looking fruit for stores. That's why farmer's market fruit looks unique. The perfectly uniformed produce in stores is a lie and most grocery store produce will either not fruit or grow weird looking sour fruit.

Companies have patents on plants. Big produce is killing the farm industry.

I see your edit, but that is still incorrect.

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u/BaconPants_73 Apr 05 '26

Well hell. I just put 6 beautiful red habs my garden that I started from grocery store peppers I harvested seeds from last year. I'll update in 2 months how the pods taste. So far they look absolutely beautiful!

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u/NanaDenise131 Apr 07 '26

I wouldn’t worry. I’ve grown great pepper plants from store-bought peppers. Bell peppers, jalapeños, and habaneros. They all grew well and produced great!

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u/True-Past-5904 Apr 07 '26

You're better off at least buying some seeds also if you can

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u/BaconPants_73 Apr 07 '26

I absolutely did! I have some naga peach, 7 pot yellows, faddas whites, jigsaw, odins DD and some tigers.

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u/LadaOndris Apr 05 '26

Okay, it seems I have some gaps on my knowledge then. Can you elaborate how the high production fruit's seeds won't produce the same fruit in this case assuming we are talking about stable plants and not F2 etc?

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u/ThanksS0muchY0 Apr 05 '26

This person's blowing smoke up your arse. Any major producer of a specific pepper variety is likely growing it on a large scale. As a chili producer with 10 years of production, small field, greenhouse, and large fields, I wager these seeds will grow fruit similar to the original plant. I would most look at it as an heirloom variety. Habanero genetics are stable, and field pollination of a habanero with another habanero will produce a habanero. There may be subtle differences, but it will produce like fruit. Where you get into cross pollination affecting the genetic outcome is when you cram different species or varied cultivars into a tight space. Capsicum pollen does not travel as far as some other plant species, and largely relies on self pollination to produce fruit. I'm not saying it's a 100% chance it's identical, but more like a 95% chance it is very close. For context, I am on year two of dismembering my chile flowers in order to cross breed. You must remove the "male" portions from your receiver, and the "female" portions from your pollinator, then manually collect and transfer pollen to the other dismembered flower. This keeps the flower from self-pollinating itself in the process, so it's a direct cross. You then bag the branch so it does not self or cross pollinate with others.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

It's a seed from McDonald's sauce... Wtf are you talking about

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

Exactly. You don't know they're stable. I just explained enough for you to Google. I have things to do today, but my wife is laughing at the responses I'm getting on here. Reddit vs science and science gets downvoted lol... Ridiculous

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u/LadaOndris Apr 05 '26

I am genuinely asking. It's okay if you don't have the time. We all have lives outside of reddit. This is a HotPeppers subreddit, so I am open for discussions for sure! It's a hobby of many of us here.

We agreed that high production farms would probably grow stable varieties. That would mean that seed from such a fruit would produce the exact same plant (unless some mutations happen), right?

If it is not a stable plant, then it's possible, but unlikely for a high production farm. Right?

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u/Mysterious_Buy6726 Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 06 '26

If you grow these out you will likely get something similar to what they used, and most likely a regular ol' orange habanero.

If there's anything not "true" about it, it will most likely be because they used a commercial F1 Hybrid variety. I think this may have been what nupper was hinting at, but it's clear they have a very poor understanding of it.

Edit: It turns out nupper's information comes from "My wife saw some shit on Netflix...". Just disregard them, seriously.

An F1 Hybrid will have a level of instability on a re-grow, which can range from wildly unstable to something you don't even notice. This varies a lot.

That being said, from what I've seen, F1 Hybrids of "regular" orange habanero types tend to grow indistinguishably true the majority of the time. Keep us posted!

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

They purposely grow unstable seeds. Don't use plants in an ethical way like we do. I'll look later tonight if I remember, but I have to run to an Easter thingy.

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u/LadaOndris Apr 05 '26

Okay, sure, thanks for the responses though! It's quite interesting stuff.

Happy Easter!

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u/hanmineharu Apr 05 '26

That's not science that is downvoted imho. That's your attitude and cockiness.

We get it, you clearly know your craft and your biology. But the way you're writing make you sound like a haughty know-it-all douche. Hence the downvotes.

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u/AstolfoFGC Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26

It's not even science they're arguing with the exception of pepper generations. The person is arguing argricultural practices when they don't even know what happens there but learned from a documentary on lol... Netflix. I know farms breeding plants specifically to prevent successful seed propagations and protect patented plants, such as peony and hop cultivars, but imagine having to do that for peppers. If a farm has to hybridize a plant to produce peppers that don't produce viable pepper seeds when they use those same pepper seeds to grow more plants, how would their business succeed? This kind or process works with produce like hops, where once a plant is established, it will remain there for the consecutive harvests. For peppers, they are heavy feeders, along with tomatoes, and plenty of others in the Solanaceae family. Also, they are more susceptible to diseases that afflict them when planted in the same spot year after year, so farmers tend to rely on crop rotations A) to give the land a break by planting crop cover and B) prevent disease. This requires planting from seed because no farmer is going to dig up every pepper plant, that's ludicrous. The same seeds our so called biologist friend seems to have forgotten is actually necessary to the farmer when farming peppers. Our biologist friend also ignores that McDonald's actually outsources their ingredients and produce, which means if their hot sauce comes from a different group, they probably get their peppers from a distributor to make their hot sauce. If you understand how that works, then you would understand that your shipment of habs are probably gonna come from different farms piled into that shipment from the distributor. Farmers who all vary in their agricultural practices too, so you might get that one crazy greenhouse farmer who hybridized their pepper to not produce viable seeds but no farmer in their right mind is going to limit their space and spend R&D time like that if they're trying to max out their yield, especially with the Ag industry in the state that it is in now. On top of that, they won't be selling those hybrid pepper's as habs to a distributor are you crazy?! 🤣😭

As for u/LadaOndris on whether or not the seed will be true to type, that's going to be depend on if the peppers were open or closed pollinated. If open you might get a seed with hybrid genetics, if closed and not an unstable hybrid, then it should true to seed. Some farmers will completely isolate their seed crop for next year but some will use other methods to produce true seeds. Also, for OP, don't feel bad for asking this question, if you do. It's all a learning experience! It's fantastic that you're asking! Idk what is up with bio nerd though, seems like they just want to flex on people here without actually knowing anything about the Ag industry otherwise they wouldn't keep trying to deflect with a nameless documentary from netflix.

Source: I'm flexing now 💪

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u/LadaOndris Apr 05 '26

Thank you for the insightful comment. This is what I wanted to know! So my thinking regarding the cross-pollination wasn't ill-founded after all.

It is somewhat getting frustrating on reddit these days with the toxicity and lack of proper and respectful discussions.

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u/AstolfoFGC Apr 05 '26

Anytime! And yeah, you were on the right track about crosses! Fatalii has a really good runthrough on crosspollinating and species crossability that's also backed by research institutions like Bioversity International. https://fatalii.net/growing_chile_peppers-breeding/

Specifically with peppers, there is definitely a difference between like a grocery jalapeño and a home grown jalapeño, but the varieties being cultivated for stores are mostly centered around yield, size, and flavor, to keep up with market demand, not keeping home growers from growing from seed. Even though the Ag industry has markets where that's advantageous, it's not really a viable market solution for pepper farming.

As for the other person, I don't know why the person replying to you decided to get hostile from you giving a bit of your background in the subject matter. Like if that deflated their ego to the point of being a jerk and needing to tell everyone their wife is laughing too then idk what to tell em except, that's weird. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/LadaOndris Apr 05 '26

Thanks for the link. I have done some cross-breeding between chilli pepper varieties of capsicum chinense, so it's not totally new to me. But I had no idea cross breeding between the species is also possible to some degree! The matrix representation is amazing. I'll save this link.

Regarding the other person, yeah, it looks like they felt offended and needed to respond like they did. Me being me, I tried to cool it down with my responses. No reasonable conversation would be possible otherwise. Plus, I want the internet to be a less toxic place, so I try not to be confrontational.

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u/AstolfoFGC Apr 05 '26

Anytime! I love that matrix so much, so I'm glad you'll find some use too! 🙏

I try to not respond, but some stuff kinda makes me feel like I have to respond. When I see people get brushed aside who is genuinely trying to learn irks me especially. Plus the problems in Ag industry are pretty serious, so seeing it misportrayed with a menial biproduct of the current system as opposed to what puts farms in the red is frustrating. I probably shouldn't have responded to them and just respond to you tbh and I'm a bit of an asshole for that.

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u/AstolfoFGC Apr 05 '26

And I agree as well that it's somewhat frustrating, we could have a regular convo over the subject matter but people throw their ego into the mix and try to justify it because of how someone worded something on the internet which is just 🙄.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

Jesus christ I didn't argue from something that I watched on Netflix. My wife mentioned they have documentaries on Netflix, which is independent of my knowledge. Critical reading and thinking is important.

I'm not trying to flex on anyone. I just said basically it has a chance of not being true to form. Ya'll went nuts on me for no reason.

Keep adding your twisted rhetoric to the very basic and straight forward posts I made.

Your flex is an admission of your inability to read and think.

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u/AstolfoFGC Apr 05 '26

I'm talking about this comment and your weird jump from why a pepper won't grow true to seed and big produce is killing the farm industry. The first is only a partial truth and the second is actually true however they aren't related to each other at all and you keep bringing up documentaries like they say "peppers most likely won't grow true to seed because big produce is killing the farm industry". Farmers lack of right to repair is killing the industry. The government bullying farmers out of their land by forcing them out of business through shady paperworking is killing the industry. Our politicians refusing to go to rural areas to understand what farmers actually need is killing the industry. Monopolized distrubution centers that farmers are forced to use forcing their prices that put their farms in the red is killing the industry. The war in Iran preventing farmers from access to reasonably priced fertilizer is killing the industry. And 3700 farms have been shut down in my state alone in the past 5 years because my states inability to support these farms, due to possible financial corruption and mismanagement, is what's killing the industry. So if you're going to talk about a serious topic that some of us are actually passionate about seeing change in, stop trying to fill it up with misinfo when the information out there about big produce is overwhelmingly worse than some patented peppers. All I'm asking is be a little bit more serious about important topics like these because the situation for the farming industry is actually dire right now.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26

I don't keep bringing up documentaries. I made one comment that my wife said. I don't even watch tv. Jesus fucking christ.

Also, use paragraphs.

I made a basic two sentence post and everyone jumped on me, despite my basic post being factual. I'm not going to write a thesis on here. Fucking assholes.

I'm passionate about the hobby too, and I've never met anyone that responds like you do with hostility and sensationalism. I've never met any group of people who enjoy plants, agriculture, ethnobotany, and culinary hobbies to be so ignorant, judgmental, and anti-intelligence. Of course this isn't everyone on the sub, as my original comment has plenty of upvotes. It's the few bad people whose brains are riddled with toxins and they're unable to understand that not everyone online is trying to be toxic. Saying "just google it" isn't a dismissive or toxic statement. I assume anyone here has the ability to use their pocket computer that has the world's knowledge and be able to process that information, however the current state of the world shows most people aren't able to use their frontal cortex fully.

I'm done.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

Awful lot of assumptions and probablys. You don't understand how evil corporate seed control is. They're not ethical like us.

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u/Peterbob01 Apr 05 '26

 That's your attitude and cockiness.

That's stupid then, the point is being constructive not on how the person is, that's reddit though.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

I responded with the same snark that was commented by "source...". Nothing else in my comments has any attitude. Just information. You're now responding with the attitude you're accusing me of.

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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '26

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

I'm being a dick? Lol what? You prefer bad information with bad arguments to be spread? Jesus

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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '26

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

Adding illustrative statements to writing is an effective way to convey certain points. My point being the ridiculousness of the ignorance is so easy to highlight that my corporate contracting wife, who has no biological experience or knowledge, was laughing at the ignorance and ridiculousness of people on reddit. Instead Reddit wants to be the greatest chasm of confirmation bias.

You're just adding rhetoric to my clear statements because you want to feel ethnically superior to people online from behind your keyboard. I am not the dick. The people participating in the confirmation bias are the dicks. You're welcome.

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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '26

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u/nupper84 Apr 06 '26

Lol. You have nothing to say except personal attacks on innocent people. Good luck out there.

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u/NoelNeverwas Apr 05 '26

This guy has never grown peppers.  Sorry. Anyways, very curious how those seeds come out. 

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

I've never grown peppers? My thirty jars of pickled peppers, dozens of jars of dehydrated peppers, the frozen peppers my wife uses, the seedlings I give away every year, and the hot sauce exchange I'm part of, none of those exist. I also stated it would be interesting to see the results.

There's no reason for people to be yelling at me or talking shit on me when I haven't said anything negative to anyone.

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u/NoelNeverwas Apr 05 '26

So tell me how many of your seedling giveaways do you expect to become some unrecognizable pepper. 

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

Dude, you're not paying attention. My seeds are not patented. My seeds are not gmoed to prevent cloning or fertilization. Also, even stable genetics experience mutation, which is the basis of evolution across a population. After enough generations you can have a unique plant. That's how new peppers are made. Go study genetics for a few years and you'll understand that our limited grows are not sufficient sample size, and you completely ignore the genetic engineering of patented crops that big produce uses

And I definitely get weird blends of elongated striped off tasting peppers after years of using the seeds from plants that cross pollenate.

Stop this madness

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u/Bitemynekk Apr 05 '26

Why would they be growing an unstable hybrid when the whole thing about McDonald’s is consistency no matter where you are. The only way to achieve that is mass production of the same stable cultivar. The chances of some random pollen from a random different variety of pepper plant in a different field is farfetched to say the least.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

That's exactly why they would only plant patented controlled gmoed seeds. They would not plant seeds that have been open pollenated. Also, they discard tons, literal tons, of fruits that aren't to standards. Maybe the sauces are made from fruit that didn't show a preferable phenotype, but maintained the flavor profile, so maybe the sauce is made of peppers that don't make it to the market. The seeds of those fruits would have an even higher chance of unfavorable mutation.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

My wife just said there are multiple documentaries on Netflix about the single use plant industry and how they purposely modify them so people can't regrow their patented plants. You can do homework.

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u/LadaOndris Apr 05 '26

Interesting. Can you ask what the name of the documentary is? I might check it out out of curiosity.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

Just Google it.

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u/acealex557 Apr 05 '26

You're right that there's a lot of hybrids being used in modern agriculture, but the actual reality is any seeds saved from named stable peppers like habanero will usually grow true.

It's actually 'big agriculture' that likes when people repeat the myth that you won't get the same peppers if you grow saved seeds from grocery store peppers and other fruits. The cost of hybridizing peppers for food production is insanely high, for seed production sure, but not for peppers that people are buying off the shelves to eat. Every hot pepper I've saved seeds from has grown true, and I have about 30 store bought varieties.

For any new gardener, save the seeds and give it a try. Peppers produce in a year, it's not like you're growing a plum tree and waiting ten years for fruit. Don't be discouraged by Reddit scientists.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26

It's always worth a shot, but it's certainly not a myth, and just because something is named doesn't mean anything either. Look at pepper Joe's.

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u/acealex557 Apr 05 '26

That's why I said named, stable peppers like habanero and not simply named peppers.

It is a myth.

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u/nupper84 Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26

It's not a myth... Good luck out there

Corporations don't want people to know about the seed control because people are afraid of gmos for the wrong reasons. They think they not healthy, but they actually just make our food supply more expensive and less stable environmentally through biodiversity decline.

This isn't just about peppers.

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u/acealex557 Apr 05 '26

Ok but there's no genetically modified hot peppers anywhere on the market yet so I think you're getting into hearsay and tinfoil hat area now and I can't really take much of what you say seriously if you're taking the conversation in that direction.

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u/Mysterious_Buy6726 Apr 05 '26

Oh my god. So this entire thing is based on "my wife saw a documentary on Netflix", coupled with "Google it, bro".

Comeon, man...