Antares

Antares is a commercial sweet bell pepper hybrid grown for large blocky red fruit, thick walls, and a concentrated harvest window. Current exact-name commercial material from Kobayashi Seed describes it as a bell type maturing in about 120 days, with fruit around 270 g, about 9.0 x 10.0 cm in size, around 7 mm wall thickness, red mature colour, and PVY tolerance.

Its public documentary trail places it in the registered vegetable-cultivar trade rather than in hobbyist or heirloom circulation. Official European common-catalogue material lists Antares under Capsicum annuum in the pimiento or pepper section by 2011, and later catalogue editions in the mid-2010s continue to show it as a hybrid entry.

Culturally, Antares belongs to the modern sweet-pepper production market, where bell peppers are selected for uniform blocky fruit, thick flesh, stable red maturity, and efficient commercial harvest rather than pungency. A major factual conflict exists over the origin and administrative trail: current exact-name commercial material is tied to Kobayashi Seed in Japan, while official European catalogue records associate Antares with Spanish maintainer code ES 4311 in the mid-2010s, and the 2025 common-catalogue supplement marks Antares as deleted.