Ring A Bell Pepper?

Why do peppers have three bumps on the bottom? That was the question posed by my daughter while helping cut up peppers for lunch snacks. We all had our theories but none of us truly knew the answer.

A quick search on the Internet revealed that none of us were right. Apparently the number of lobes (or bumps) on the bottom of a bell pepper is not a genetic trait. Instead, they develop based on environmental factors such as the length of harvest and the number of branches on the plant.

In addition to learning something about plant biology, we practiced top notch researching skills by finding authoritative data. The initial search results were mostly social media responses but a couple led us deeper to the Academic Journals. That is where we located Dharma, Semwal and Uniyal's paper on Genetic Variability and character association analysis in bell peppers.

Citation

Journal Of Horticulture And Forestry Vol. 2(3) Pp. 058-065, March, 2010, Available Online Http://www.academicjournals.org/jhf, and Issn 2006-9782 ©2010 Academic Journal. Genetic Variability and Character Association Analysis in Bell Pepper (Capsicum Annuum L.) (n.d.): n. pag. Web.