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Scottish 2025 Superhot trial begins !

Hi Guy's

The madness has begun again ! ðŸĪŠ 😜😗

My 2024 superhot chilli trial turned out far from ideal trying to find superhots I like but most importantly will thrive in my particular micro climate (my wee Scottish greenhouse)

Firstly 2024 weather was rubbish little sun alot of cloud and temperatures much lower than previous year's 🙁 and let's face it "Scottish sumers" often cool and wet for long periods at best !

Add to the above by a number of mistakes by me 🙄

Such as leaving my horticultural bubble wrap on for most of the season, I'm sure it exacerbated into the natural poor light levels of 2024 :whistle:

Then my lack of seed continuity labelling :banghead: which lead to my culling my only Dorset Naga :seeya:
And a "gigantic" Scotch brains yellow f6 which i hadn't intended.

Then once I'd hardened off my young plant's and moved them out to the unheated greenhouse cardboard underneath and horticultural fleece on top February/March, this in itself is not a problem I've been amazed how they will tolerate such low temperatures 🙂 however..........................potting up too soon into final pots be it 5 litre or 10 litre or bigger rather than slowly potting up one size at a time proved catastrophic when this coincides with temperatures dropping from 10 oC plus to 3oC for the next two or three weeks ! I lost a few varieties that never recovered and really upset the others infact emergency 'down potting " saved the day.

Sowing in November. ðŸĪ”..........personally I think for me in my situation it means I ran out of "spareroom" too soon forcing the earlier hardening off although it would have been ok if I hadn't made the mistake of potting up into cold wet soil. How ever I've started a month later this season.

Only other mistakes I can think of is moving trial varieties from mini kratky 500ml -800 ml to 5 litre ! 😎 the resulting increase in size is spectacular but unwanted if your short on greenhouse space !

Likewise other trial varieties in soil moving from 5 litre pot to 18 litre pot big mistake ! You loose a lot of space and often end up either with loads of pod's you don't really like of enjoy ðŸŦĪ or a large plant that doesn't produce well in your situation. Another issue is you can only keep a single specimen of each variety big mistake !

Reckon I've pretty much laid bare all my mistakes and cock ups of 2024 ........now hopefully I'll learn from them ðŸĪžand hopefully anyone reading this won't repeat them 🙂

I think the urge to pot up either too early or too big is driven firstly by the idea of getting them settled in there final pots quicker and less root disturbance and secondly by greed ðŸŦĢ the what if I grow a small specimen only to find I adore the flavour and heat 😋 but now only have a handful of pod's and have to wait another year to grow it again ! ðŸ˜Ŧ with hind site I think this is kind of the way it has to be when growing in limited space they do say greed is a sin and patience a virtue 🙂

This glog appears to have turned into a review of 2024 which is perhaps not a bad thing............. my discovery of 2024 was Reaper x Moruga f5 from whitehot peppers 😋😋😋 a new favourite delicious !

Now back to my 2025 Scottish superhot trial you will notice I don't list sowing too many varieties as a mistake as I allows you options you won't have if you hadn't sown them. The only issue's are space or rather lack of it ðŸĪĢ the other having the self control to cull varieties as they show themselves to be weak, slow or not thriving. They are the easy ones it's culling the strong healthy specimens purely based on space that's hard 😗

For 2025 I trying to stick to a plan.......firstly sown a month later 👍

Keep trial plant's in mini kratky or if in soil 3 litre or 5 litre pot's MAX ! And hopefully multiples rather than single specimens.

No bubble wrap cardboard below and fleece on top early in the season is enough and more light

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15 cell seed tray with commercial seed mix x6 seeds sown in each cell and topped with vermiculite, next day I realised I missed a variety......so added another 3 cells to the propergater.

Hopefully all labelled correctly this time I can't see how there could have been any mistakes this time.

Sown 11.12.24 (11th December 2024)

1. Dorset naga - seaspring seeds
2. Bengle naga - seaspring seeds
3. Zing - semillas
4. Reaper equis - semillas
5. Primotalii - fatalii seeds
6. Hurtberry - fatalii seeds
7. Fatalii gourmet jigsaw - fatalii seeds
8. Chocolate scotch bonnet - white hot peppers
9. Tiberious mauler red f5 - white hot peppers
10. Peach ghost jami - white hot peppers (sown 12.12.24)
11. Reaper x srtsl f8 - white hot peppers (sown 12.12.24)
12. Devils nagabrain f4 - white hot peppers (12.12.24)
13. Scotch brains yellow f7 - self
14. Reaper x Moruga f6 - self
15. Dragons breath - pepper merchant
16. Purple death - pepper merchant
17. Gator jigsaw - peppers merchant
18. Red Nagabrain - pepper merchant

There maybe failed germination there will be culling I will prioritise varieties as the season goes along and I make further decisions

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a fruitful new chilli season 🙂

Stephen
 
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I hope you will have an amazing season, @Englander !
I don't know why is it so hard to label them correctly all the time but it is, I have made few mistakes just few weeks into the season. Like, wtf.

I am glad you have made AND LEARNED FROM so many mistakes, because it probably is what's the point of that beautiful growing journey. This year is gonna be different, probably more fun and that's awesome.

And Merry Christmass to you! <3
 
Hi Guy's

My 2025 Superhot trial is off and running 😎 germination has been excellent with only one exception ðŸĨš but I'm sure I'm worrying unnecessarily.

Given my lableing cock ups over past year's 🙄 this year I've taken extra precautions not only have used a tiny sharpie and cut up milk carton lables in each pot , I've gone further and marked keep cell with masking tape too ðŸĪ“ not taking any chances 😁 however..............😗 I even managed to cock up one of these !! ðŸ˜ģ but I quickly spotted it and thanks to the first lable disaster was everted 🙂

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No chances taken double marked 😂

As you can see I placed 6 seeds on the seed compost after soaking with very warm water and covered them in a layer of vermiculite and sprayed to dampen . Placed in a Stewarts electric propergater it has no thermostat, simply plug in ......I'm not overly impressed but if I sit it on double cardboard and put a large folded bath towel over it in I can hit 28 oC otherwise it seems to sit about 24 oC/25oC each year I toy with getting a new sexy one that controls the temp etc......but .....well it work's.

GERMINATION AS FOLLOWS:

1. Hurtberry = 8 day's
2. Dorset naga = 8 day's
3. Zing = 9 day's
4. Reaper equis = 9 day's
5. Scotch brains = 9 day's
6. Tiberious mauler red = 9 day's
7. Bengle naga = 10 day's
8. Dragons breath = 10 day's
9. Gator jigsaw = 10 day's
10. Red Nagabrain = 10 day's
11. Peach ghost jami = 10 day's
12. Reaper x srtsl = 10 day's
13. Fatallii gourmet = 10 day's
14. Primotalii = 11 day's
15. Devils nagabrain = 11 day's
16. Chocolate scotch bonnet = day's
17. Purple death = 11 day's
18. Reaper x Moruga..............pending............ðŸĨš

Confession time ...........😗 ive panicked already and sown the last of my self saved Reaper x Moruga andhalf dozen of my original white hot peppers Reaper x Moruga seed, im probably jumping the gun plenty of time for the original seeds to germinate. But better safe than sorry as the Reaper x Moruga is blooming delicious 😋

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My DIY light box has donevthe job the last few year's 👍

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It contains a lizard bulb and holder I got at the local pets shop bulbs lasted a good few seasons already. I keep a wee tub of water and I also mist the seedlings once or twice a day.

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Plan this season is too leave the seedlings (x6 seeds in each cell ) in the cells until they "need" potted up I will snip off any weaklings and only keep 3 or 4 healthy seedlings in each cell to grow on.

I will hit have the room to keep all 18 varieties I'm researching each variety and plan to draw up a short best of best options to keep, the other's will be culled either compost heap 😭 or given away to anyone with a greenhouse who wants them.

Any advice and opinions on the varieties would be most welcome ðŸĪ”

Exciting times I get so excited at germination time :dance:
 
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Looks like you're off to a great start, best of luck this season! :metal:

I grew Peach Ghost Jami some years ago, probably when it was still an unstable cross, but if it is the same variety I can highly recommend it.
The plants I grew yielded tons and tons of peppers in quite small containers (5 liter maybe). The peppers were excellent, surprisingly thick-walled and crunchy. Don't know exactly how hot they were but probably a fair bit over 1 million SHU and when I cut the peppers open they had pools of capsaicin oils. :fireball:
I think this variety will end up on my grow list as well this upcoming season.
 
Englander said:
Any advice and opinions on the varieties would be most welcome ðŸĪ”

Exciting times I get so excited at germination time :dance:
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I can only comment on Yellow Scotch Brains and Chocolate Scotch Bonnet.

I mentioned YSB in my review of what I grew in 2024. It was a really nice surprise. Very hot, but with a delicious Yellow Scotch Bonnet flavor and also just enough citrus flavor to complement it without being overwhelmingly citrusy (think between Yellow SB and Fatalii). It's a solid choice if you're looking for something with great flavor.

I grew the Chocolate Scotch Bonnet a few times over the years, starting in about 2005. The version I acquired was a little smaller and more uniform-shaped than the Chocolate Habaneros that were circulating. I really like that one and prefer it over Chocolate Habaneros. It was most comparable to my Congo Black, which is a really nice pepper too. Chocolate Scotch Bonnets and Congo Blacks don't seem to have as much of the grassy flavor as Chocolate Habaneros do, and the flavor of the former two is smokier and stronger, more earthy. I've also noticed that Chocolate Habaneros have a greenish placenta and thinner walls, and Congo Black/Chocolate Scotch Bonnets have a red placenta and thicker walls. The Congo Black is a Trinidad landrace, versus the Chocolate Scotch Bonnet which is (of course) from Jamaica, and both are great, and are a really nice addition to the garden.

A little, anecdotal piece of history if you're interested: before the arrival of the Indian and Trinidad landrace chinenses and the advent of the superhots, the collective opinion among serious growers was that the Chocolate SB was one of the world's hottest peppers (if not the world's hottest at that time). People rarely differentiated between it and the Chocolate Habanero/Congo Black Habanero in terms of heat, and I think the nomenclature was not as tight as it is now, but generally speaking the chocolate chinenses were regarded as the world's hottest. It was unseated by the Red Savina and subsequently the Bhut Jolokia when they started running HPLC tests to determine SHU's. I've tried Red Savinas and I really don't think they're hotter than Chocolate SB/Congo Black, but maybe it was just the growing conditions that I had.
 
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