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chinense Borbhut landrace - possibly the hottest pepper ever recorded?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304423816305544
 
This article examines the variation in pungency for "Borbhut", a landrace pepper grown in Northeast India. They grew this strain at two locations with different soil types and with different fertilizer treatments. SHU varied between 2.4 and 4.7 million. The highest numbers were found in one of the locations, and the addition of vermicompost gave the overall hottest peppers. They also grew a Bhut Jolokia as a control, which averaged at 1 and 1.3 million for the two locations.
 
sniken said:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304423816305544
 
This article examines the variation in pungency for "Borbhut", a landrace pepper grown in Northeast India. They grew this strain at two locations with different soil types and with different fertilizer treatments. SHU varied between 2.4 and 4.7 million. The highest numbers were found in one of the locations, and the addition of vermicompost gave the overall hottest peppers. They also grew a Bhut Jolokia as a control, which averaged at 1 and 1.3 million for the two locations.
Do you have to pay to read the full article? The only thing I see is the "abstract" section.
 
So what's the deal with this 'Borbhut' chili? I can't seem to find any info about it. Is it just another name for Bhut?
 
Jubnat said:
So what's the deal with this 'Borbhut' chili? I can't seem to find any info about it. Is it just another name for Bhut?
English is not my first language but it seem to be
 
 
from the pdf @ Alchymystic gave
 
IntroductionCapsicum chinense (Jacq.) cv. Borbhut, a member of thesolanaceae family is a rare, indigenous, and endemic plant foundonly in the hills and plains of Northeast India (Meghvansi et al.,2010). This wild species evolved after natural cross pollinationbetween C. frutescens and C. chinense followed by adaptation todifferent microclimatic conditions prevalent in this region (Islamet al., 2015). Earlier, this species was designated as the “hottestchili” in the world (Guinness World Records, 2006). Interest-ingly, the hotness recedes due to strong endemism of the crop;thus greatly restricting the agronomic expansion of the species∗
 
As far as I understand it, Borbuht is a cultivar of the Bhut Jolokia. The paper is a bit confusing on this point, sometimes mentioning Bhut Jolokia, sometimes "Borbhut".
 
When I first read the article I thought they used Bhut Jolokia as a control (T1). Reading it again, I see that the T1 control is Borbuht without any soil amendments. In Table 10, they list the chemical analysis for "Bhut Jolokia (Borbhut)", and from this it appears that the increase from 1.3 to 4.67 million Scoville is due to the compost only. In the rest of the article they refer to "Borbhut" in quotes, which indicates that this is an unofficial local name for the cultivar.
 
It's a shame they didn't publish a photo of the pepper. Anyway, there is a lot of good information here on soil type, climate and fertilizers.
 
Of possible relevance, I just stumbled upon an Indian chilli known as "Boriya", with or without the y, named for its resemblance to the "bor" or jujube berry. Could these be smaller or rounder Bhuts then?
 
Vermicompost is the best hands down, i have a worm box and believe me it's well worth it to have one. Worm poop is the best :P
 
sniken said:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304423816305544
 
This article examines the variation in pungency for "Borbhut", a landrace pepper grown in Northeast India. They grew this strain at two locations with different soil types and with different fertilizer treatments. SHU varied between 2.4 and 4.7 million. The highest numbers were found in one of the locations, and the addition of vermicompost gave the overall hottest peppers. They also grew a Bhut Jolokia as a control, which averaged at 1 and 1.3 million for the two locations.
 
Who has ever heard of Tezpur University? enrollment 1,700. Its in Assam, India so I assume they know their hot peppers.
 
Alchymystic said:
I uploaded the full article here, haven't read it yet... going to dig into it later. Thanks for sharing and making this known, sniken!  :cool: 
 
https://www.keepandshare.com/doc13/16310/nk002-20170130001-pdf-1-7-meg?da=y
 
Great work, F the paywall!
 
Gonzo said:
Vermicompost is the best hands down, i have a worm box and believe me it's well worth it to have one. Worm poop is the best :P
 
This seems to be the result of the paper. Their treatment 5 was growing peppers under VC only, with no P or K fertilizer, and those peppers had the highest pungency. If this is true, it continues to support the theory that peppers produce capsicanoids when stressed, as shown in Phimchan et al 2012 http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/47/9/1204.full
That paper is about drought stress and Paul Bosland is an author. I thought he was also an author on a heat stress paper but I can't find it right now.  I'll edit this comment if i do.
 
That above said it was the same as the 2006 world record holder, which was the Bhut Jokolia.. this is really the same?
 
Go vermicompost!!
 
The_NorthEast_ChileMan said:
Above what?
 
Its from the beginning of the introduction:
 
Capsicum chinense (Jacq.) cv. Borbhut, a member of the solanaceae family is a rare, indigenous, and endemic plant found only in the hills and plains of Northeast India (Meghvansi et al., 2010). This wild species evolved after natural cross pollination between C. frutescens and C. chinense followed by adaptation to different microclimatic conditions prevalent in this region (Islam et al., 2015). Earlier, this species was designated as the “hottest chili” in the world (Guinness World Records, 2006). Interestingly, the hotness recedes due to strong endemism of the crop; thus greatly restricting the agronomic expansion of the species in varied agroclimates. In Northeast India, this crop is traditionally cultivated in home gardens and there exists a sizeable genetic variability among the landraces (Bhagowati and Changkija, 2009).
 
Some confusion here: The author states that the borbhut is the same species as the guinness winner, and calls that species chinense. But guinness winners had been chinense since before 2006, so why make that distinction? I believe it is because this university is one of the ones pushing for the assamicum species classification. They say "this wild species evolved after natural cross..." even though they earlier called the pepper in question Capsicum chinense cv. Borbhut, which means the cultivar name is Borbhut, not the species name.
 
TLDR: The authors want to call all of the indian super hots Capsicum assamicum but don't use that terminology in this paper, which leads to some confusion.
 
If anyone is interested in this assamicum debate I have some interesting papers I could link.
 
If they censored "assamicum" out of the article and replaced it with chinense then that would explain why it essentially claims that chinense is a natural evolution of a frutescense chinense hybrid. Which would obviously imply time travel.

What I then have to ask, though, is what the genetic difference between an indian super and a trinidadian super is, since both are known to be chinense derivatives with a mutation that causes placental tissue displacement, the most obvious seperating factor.

I also question how we can call anything after the "capsicum" a species when the vast majority at least can cross to produce viable offspring.

Do link me.
 
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