I am no expert at all. Sencond year grower. For what it is worth and only my opinion (More knowledgable folks will chime in I know, Great site). I would not use the dark brown/Black seeds. I have tried before and no luck with germination. I would just use the nice looking tan/yellow ones with no "blimishes".

From the picture, I think you have a lot of good looking viable seeds there. But again, take what I say with a grain of salt as I am still learning.

Bill

Bill Missy:

Thank you kindly for the reply. I figured I would ask on here and find out the kind of luck (if any) people may or may not have had with them. I am by no means in short supply of them, but I also didn't want to discard of any that could come up.

But in comparison to any other seeds they don't look that healthy at all.

Follow-up: I can use seeds out of store bought habaneros (like the ones pictured above) can't I? As I stated I do have a pack of seeds purchased from a company, but I have enjoyed them so I figure if I can save seeds - why not!

Thank you again!

Agree would discard the brown ones. You do not have to dry out seeds if you want to directly plant them. Drying them is only for storage for later planting or seed swapping.

Mark

I have bought several items from the grocery store (Bells, Jalapeno, Habs etc.) and have dried the seeds and germinated with pretty good results.

Since they were habaneros they will probably germinate. Habs in the stores are generally ripe. But, things like Serrano, Jalapeno, bells, etc.. that are sold green will have a much lower success rate of germination.

Thanks for the help you all. I've lingered around the website quite a while and have always found out what I needed to know here - so I figured I would make an account.

I did try saving some jalapeno seeds, but I'm starting to question them and thinking of starting some seeds that I've ordered instead and saving some from the plants this year assuming they do well.

With that said: why are jalapenos, and serranos, etc. sold green? Do the plants yield a lot less if they allow plants to ripen?

Agree with tsheets. I've tried harvesting seeds from store-bought "green" peppers, and the germination rates are abysmal, if any. Orange, red, and yellow bells -- awesome germ rates.

ab2008:

"With that said: why are jalapenos, and serranos, etc. sold green? Do the plants yield a lot less if they allow plants to ripen?"

That would be my guess, especially for as long as it takes a Jalapeno to ripen red. Not to mention some peppers just don't develop much flavor and/or heat until they ripen. Jalapenos and serranos, on the other hand, are great green or red. Btw, SERRANOS actually ripen to red pretty darn fast compared to most others that I've grown.

Also, DRIED, ripened chiles in the Hispanic section of the grocery store-- I've actually been able to get plants out of the seeds harvested from pods of Guajillos and Chiles de Arboles.

Kevin

This post was edited by woohooman on Mon, Feb 4, 13 at 22:23

Yeah, the big reason why Jalepenos and Bells are sold green is that they have most of their flavor while green, and it takes a long time for them to actually ripen and turn after they reach full size. So its a lot of extra time invested for not a lot of extra payoff on the part of the commercial growers.

Other peppers simply aren't good tasting until they ripen.

Basic rule of thumb is that there is no such thing as a pepper that is green when fully ripe, they all turn to another color (usually red, sometimes orange or yellow, rarer ones turn other colors).