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hybrid Have you tested your crosses for SHU?

I'm going to start crossing this year. I'm going to use the pollen from a ghost (if I can get the damn things to grow) and cross it with a Caribbean red, red moruga, scotch bonnett, chocolate hab and a reaper. Has anyone ever had there crosses tested to see what the range was? I called the chili pepper institute in NM and they referred me to south west biolabs in los cruces (check spelling). They said it would only be around 50 bucks to get a pepper or sauce tested.
 
Helvete said:
Nope but I have a few that I probably should get tested.  $50 isn't too bad if I was a grower/vendor and actually wanted to know, but I haven't gotten to the point where it matters yet...I let my tongue do the testing.
i would think testing it every year or every generation would be cool to see if the SHU increase as the generations grow and it becomes more and more stable
 
That seems like a lot of money for a hobbyist to shell out, especially as one pepper will not give a perfect indication of the heat of its species.
For comercial purposes, this seems a fine way to procure data but, unless you plan on selling a lot of your creation, I wouldn't be willing to pay for a decent sample size.
 
Why?
 
When commercial growers are trying to cultivate and profit from certain strain, or if the Chile Pepper Institute of New Mexico is doing their own observations, they require a 5 year, isolated grow, and a proven harvest, before they test it. If you are just curious, go ahead and pay for the test but get back to us in 6 years because it won't mean anything until then. 
 
We get a bunch of customers every year who test their "new" crosses at various F stages as they develop them.   These are both large farms, seed companies, and home growers.  Some are looking to see if the current crop is similar to the last or any other thing they may want to know.  The grower may use the heat values as a tool to select certain fields (or plants) for seeds or to not use them at all.  It's just another tool if you want to use it.  Of course, it does cost $50 per test and for the small home grower it is a lot to spend regularly.  
 
Small businesses like ajdrew's and others may benefit in knowing what is happening objectively with the HPLC SHU testing.  Many, even people on this forum, do it regularly.
 
If you do it, I suggest picking a dozen pods (or more) from different parts of the plants as well as different plants, if you have them.  Then, dry that bunch and grind them up.  Now that they are mixed well and you only need to send a couple of grams of powder of any super-hot type to the lab (milder peppers require 10 grams).  I think we, Southwest Bio-labs, are the cheapest at $50 that I know of.  Good luck!
 
Here you go. FYI.
 
Companies Who Perform High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) Scoville Heat Units (SHU) or Heat Testing
The Chile Pepper Institute does not provide HPLC/SHU/Heat testing on chile pepper samples to the general public, however, the following companies do:
 
 
 
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1tom2go said:
We get a bunch of customers every year who test their "new" crosses at various F stages as they develop them.   These are both large farms, seed companies, and home growers.  Some are looking to see if the current crop is similar to the last or any other thing they may want to know.  The grower may use the heat values as a tool to select certain fields (or plants) for seeds or to not use them at all.  It's just another tool if you want to use it.  Of course, it does cost $50 per test and for the small home grower it is a lot to spend regularly.  
 
Small businesses like ajdrew's and others may benefit in knowing what is happening objectively with the HPLC SHU testing.  Many, even people on this forum, do it regularly.
 
If you do it, I suggest picking a dozen pods (or more) from different parts of the plants as well as different plants, if you have them.  Then, dry that bunch and grind them up.  Now that they are mixed well and you only need to send a couple of grams of powder of any super-hot type to the lab (milder peppers require 10 grams).  I think we, Southwest Bio-labs, are the cheapest at $50 that I know of.  Good luck!
Thank you for great info.
 
So , as you say in the last paragraph ,the best is to get a good average by using several whole pods from different plants and places. To take just a small piece of pepper will just not work.
I assume that for record purposes they only accept whole pods, or more than one?
 
karoo said:
I assume that for record purposes they only accept whole pods, or more than one?
 

As was mentioned above, it now takes testing over the course of a 5 year isolated grow to attain a reccord, this testing is purely for grower information.
 
Sounds like it might be the latter, actually, but I can't really say for sure. Regardless, testing 1 pepper or even 1 plant will not give you an acceptable level of data to dethrone the Reaper.
 
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