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Bhut Jolokia Trinidad origins?

mrz1988

mrz1988

I'm sure a bunch of you have seen this:

http://fiery-foods.com/chiles-around-the-world/76-caribbean/3028-lord-harris-the-ghost-pepper-governor

Anybody think this is truth? It surely seems that Trinidad is the king of the superhots so it would only make sense that they also had the original genetics that formed the Bhut and the other Nagas. Makes sense to me that Lord Harris brought seeds for one of the Trinidad super-hots, and the genetics were developed, mutated, and hybridized over 100+ generations to form the nice range of Nagas/Bih/Bhut strains that we have today. I think it's just as logical to claim that the 7 pot and scorpion varieties both came out of the exact same parent. They are, after all, very similar pods when you think about it. It would be easy enough to have a common ancestor for all superhots that diversified within the last 100-200 years.
 
spongey600 said:
http://www.thehotpepper.com/topic/25006-scorpion-7-pot-and-douglah-origins/
Click to expand...

This speaks much more about the origins of chinense plants that came to Trinidad originally. Remember that plants on an island will quickly diversify their genetics to completely new strains or even species because of genetic isolation. The first chinenses to come to Trinidad were not superhots at all but likely other chinense strains from South America that were deposited by birds. Look what that exact process did to c. galapagoense!

I'm asking if it's possible that all 'superhots' have an allele common to Trinidad where it was first isolated. Since the only two locations on the globe that have originated superhots are Trinidad and India, and capsicum species originated in the New World, there are only two possibilities. Either they both have a common ancestor, or they developed a superhot trait separately from the strains in Trinidad. I find the common ancestor solution to be much more likely. India and Trinidad have been very much intertwined since the early 19th century so it is very likely that the seeds were carried over from there.

Edit: Thanks Beaglestorm. I had always figured the 7 pot and the scorpion had a sure common ancestor. I'm trying to find folks who think that the Bhut Jolokia and other Indian superhots also had that same common ancestor from the past 150 years or so but were isolated and bred to a different result.

All peppers obviously have the same common ancestors. All plants that produce different enough results from one another consistently can be identified as different strains (7 pot and scorpion are different strains, same species). How closely two peppers are related, however, is very important in the genetic family tree. Are Bhut Jolokias more closely related to scorpions and 7 pots, or perhaps another chinense altogether like the Fatalii? Pegging down these origins is definitely important to the taxonomy and genetic history of the popular superhot species we love. Is their common ancestor 100 generations away, or 1000? That's a huge difference.
 
Thats one popular theory. Another is that the fatalii(Chinense) and possibly malagueta(frutescens) were parents to the bhut
http://fiery-foods.com/component/content/article/57/3007
 
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