Last edited on 3 Feb 2024. View history

Pequin Pepper

Also known as piquin pepper (en)

How to sow pequin pepper: Direct seed indoors, transplant seedlings outside after hardening off

Sun requirement for pequin pepper: Plant in Partial Sun

The Pequin, or Piquin, Pepper is a hot chili pepper cultivar that produces small, 2cm long, peppers that grow upright rather than hanging. Peppers ripen from green to bright red and are very spicy, with a Scoville Heat rating of 30,000–60,000 units. They have a citrusy, smoky, nutty flavor, and are often pickled or added to salsas, hot sauces, and soups. Pequin peppers have a low germination rate (15%) and can take 2-4 months to germinate.

0: plantings
0: harvests
0: seed packets

Growstuff is a free, community-run site for people who grow food. Keep track of what you plant and harvest, find seeds to swap, and see what is growing near you. Join to record your own pequin peppers.

Pequin pepper facts

Lifespan

Annual living and reproducing in a single year or less

Height

100cm

Row Spacing

60cm

What are growing degree days?

A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.

Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.

For pequin pepper, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 8°C and a shortest growing cycle of 60 days at its best temperature, about 930 growing degree days to a first harvest.

Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your pequin pepper will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.