Bell pepper growing on jalapeño plant stuns gardener

SUPPLY, N.C. (WWAY) — The temperatures may be in the 90s, but the hottest story today is unfolding in a Supply gardener’s backyard.

“I enjoy my garden, I eat, I give away,” said James Robinson.

Robinson grows tomatoes, okra, cucumbers and eggplants, but what’s really getting him hot under the collar is one of his jalapeño pepper plants.

“The plant with jalapeño peppers and a bell pepper on the same stalk. I said whoa!” said Robinson. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Melissa Lay helps Robinson and his wife with the garden. She was tending to the jalapeños, which are planted right beside the bell peppers, when she noticed something unusual at the bottom of a jalapeño stalk.

“When I seen it I thought maybe it was just a bell pepper growing with the jalapenos and then when I started looking more and more.” said Lay. “I took a picture of it and sent it to Mr. Robinson, he thought I was crazy.”

Wanting a clearer picture of how this could occur, WWAY reached out to Brunswick County Commercial and Consumer Horticulture Agent Taylor McDaniel.

“This is more than likely something called a chimera, which is just a plant mutation that happens with no rhyme or reason,” said McDaniel

That means the plant is composed of two or more genetically distinct types of tissues growing together in the same organism.

In other words, a rare quirk of nature.

“It’s absolutely a rarity, an abnormality that doesn’t usually take place,” said McDaniel.

“But the story doesn’t end here. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to do a taste test with Mr. Robinson to see if the pepper is sweet. Then we’ll send that seed to the NC Cooperative Extension for more experimenting.

After the seeds are sent to North Carolina Cooperative Extension, specialists will conduct growing trials to learn more about this rare mutation.