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scovilles moruga scorpion new hottest in the world

With the Island of Trinidad being about the same size as Rhode Island, and these different varieties (land-races or whatever), and with the peppers being grown there for so many years, how could a "pure" strain exist?....who know's what the original Trinidad hot pepper was...all I am saying is the inbreeding between the varieties on Trinidad has taken place for eons and will continue to take place and evolve through the end of time...and here's another thing to think about...if stressing a plant makes it produce more capsaicin to protect itself, what if we take away the threat it is protecting itself from?...will it make it not as hot in future generations?
 
it's true what you say ... I also think that there are no pure strains .... everything is very unstable

Our responsible is ... of fans ... select strains that we like the most (fruit size, sharpness, color, etc.) and carry it forward from generation to generation
 
agree 100% mm
 
There are always a small amount of farmers who are quite concerned with keeping genetics pure but we'll likely never see their seeds, and I'm sure CARDI does their part too.
 
Just like when NMSU got the record for the bhut and then all of a sudden Paul Bolsand "created" the bhut according to most published articles :( What about the people in India who grew it for hundreds of years, are they not people too!!! It just sounds like we're going in complete cirlces year after year.

That would be called bad journalism. It's for two reasons. 1. Lazy, sloppy journalism. 2. A reporter is a generalist. They don't always fully understand what they are reporting on. It's a hazard of the job and just how it works. Good ones are better about getting the details right, though.

it's true what you say ... I also think that there are no pure strains .... everything is very unstable

Our responsible is ... of fans ... select strains that we like the most (fruit size, sharpness, color, etc.) and carry it forward from generation to generation

Totally. I mentioned this in another thread, but peppers remind me of dogs. An insane amount of genetic variation, produced over a very short timeline, but with a VAST majority of shared genetic material and very little DNA altered to create some pretty drastic morphological/gustation distinctions. All that adds up to a reversion to the original genotype (and probably phenotype, roughly) in a very short timeline without intervention/selection/protection.

There are always a small amount of farmers who are quite concerned with keeping genetics pure but we'll likely never see their seeds, and I'm sure CARDI does their part too.

I suppose there are other more public orgs doing the same (Seed Savers X), but perhaps not with the kind of depth that places like this forum offer?
 
To those of you questioning this for validity, I do not question the numbers because I haven't seen a procedure that I can question. I can say that the 2mil reading is for all intents and purposes the hottest pod ever tested. Whether or not the TSMB is the hottest strain in the world is not answered to a sufficient scientific standard. We can congratulate the nmcpi for their impressive number but as for hottest strain this data is inconclusive.
 
I thought this might be a good place for some definitions. I think uncertainty about a number of terms is leading to confusion on the part of many. These are my own, off-the-cuff definitions and I welcome comments, corrections, suggestions, and additions. With a little lead-in commentary:

Landraces will almost always exhibit greater genetic variabililty than open-pollinated strains that have been selectively bred over time for a particular set of traits. Even these open-pollinated "pure strains" will exhibit some genetic variability, and good thing, too, else we wouldn't have a lot of the new varieties we like to play with today. The only way to get a sexually-reproduced variety that shows little to no variability is to hybridize two open-pollinated pure strains, each parent crop having been rogued before performing the hybridizing cross-pollination. (I'm thinking of large-scale efforts here. The same can be true for crosses between individual specimens.)

I have read elsewhere (ref. available on request) that for peppers, sixty plants is the minimum required to maintain the genetic diversity and relatively consistent phenotype of a particular Capsicum landrace or formal variety. That's a condition difficult to achieve for the hobbiest, but can be approximated with fewer plants per year by keeping seeds in cold storage for a years-long "longitudinal" breeding program. I think it is this inability to maintain a sufficiently broad genetic foundation, coupled with Capsicum's inherent diversity, that has led to the proliferation of varieties we are currently seeing. I think this is a good thing.

Landrace - a traditional plant variety, exhibiting a more or less uniform phenotype, that has developed over time as a result of natural selection and/or informal selection by local growers. Landraces are open-pollinated, but generally exhibit greater genetic variability than selectively-bred pure-strain varieties.

Open pollinated - a plant variety that, when pollinated by members of its own variety, produces progeny that largely reproduce the characteristics of the parent generation.

Pure strain - an open-pollinated plant variety that has been formally selected by plant breeders (professional and amateur) for a specific trait or set of traits. Pure strains exhibit less genetic variability than landraces, but more than F-1 hybrids.

F-1 hybrid - a plant variety that is the result of cross pollination between two different parent varieties. If the parent varieties are pure strain and rogued to remove off-types before performing the cross, the resulting F-1 hybrid generation will show the least genetic variability achievable via sexual reproduction (as opposed to asexual cloning). The progeny of F-1 hybrids will not be true to type, but may provide interesting starting material for further selection in a formal breeding program.

Cross pollination or out crossing - Pollination that occurs between plants of different varieties. Sometimes "cross pollination" is used to refer to pollination between two different members of the same self-pollinating plant variety. This is the case with peppers and I think has led to some confusion on occasion.

Rogue - (n.) an individual plant in a phenotypically consistent population that shows off-type characteristics. (v.) to remove said off-type individual from a breeding population
 
Great post sawyer. I'm shocked that an institute as prestigious as the cpi would backpedal from multiple 25 pod samples with their bhut testing to a handful of one pod samples. Seems counterintuitive to me, especially if you want to have results that are taken seriously. I guess they'd rather have one 2M pod sample than a few larger and round 1.2M samples for publicity. The problem is that its phoney baloney science testing only five pods when like you said they should have taken pods from 60 plants. Of course im not saying the 1.4M butch t reading was any better...
 
Whether or not the TSMB is the hottest strain in the world is not answered to a sufficient scientific standard.

Depends on how you define "hottest strain". If you mean "the strain that consistently produces the hottest peppers", then I agree. If you mean "the strain that has produced the hottest pepper ever measured", then not so much. :) (I don't have a legible image of the poster, so I don't know if or how the authors are defining "hottest strain".)

Great post sawyer. I'm shocked that an institute as prestigious as the cpi would backpedal from multiple 25 pod samples with their bhut testing to a handful of one pod samples. Seems counterintuitive to me, especially if you want to have results that are taken seriously. I guess they'd rather have one 2M pod sample than a few larger and round 1.2M samples for publicity. The problem is that its phoney baloney science testing only five pods when like you said they should have taken pods from 60 plants.

Thanks, mrz. It's good to be appreciated.

I think you aren't drawing a sufficient distinction between a presentation at a poster session and a peer-reviewed publication. Science is competitive and posters are an accepted way to establish the precedence of one's findings prior to the completion of the peer-review process necessary for publication. The follow-up publication will hopefully address your criticisms.

Also, my comment about 60 plants applies only to maintaining the genetic identity and stability of a particular strain. If a single seed fell from the sky and grew a plant that produced only a single pod and that pod was competently tested at 3 million SHU, I would not take issue with the claim that that was the hottest pepper in the world, or that the newly-identified strain, stable or otherwise, produced the hottest pepper in the world. I would take issue with a claim that the strain would consistently produce the hottest peppers.

More poor journalism

No kidding.
 
Upon straining to reread the poster it seems that sample size was larger than I originally thought. I will be attempting to reread this study and come to some real concrete conclusions by the end of the day. Hopefully I'll have a nice video post for you guys on how to interpret these findings.
 
Quote from mrz1988. "The
results of the analysis for ‘Bhut Jolokia’
indicated that it possessed an extremely high
heat level, 1,001,304 SHUs,
.... Independent tests confirmed this high
level of heat for ‘Bhut Jolokia’ with 927,199
SHUs and 879,953 SHUs from Southwest
Bio-Laboratories and Ag-Biotech, respectively."

If these data are from independent testing of the same homogenized sample then we get a feel for the smallest possible error inherent in the method of measurement.
 
Quote from mrz1988. "The
results of the analysis for ‘Bhut Jolokia’
indicated that it possessed an extremely high
heat level, 1,001,304 SHUs,
.... Independent tests confirmed this high
level of heat for ‘Bhut Jolokia’ with 927,199
SHUs and 879,953 SHUs from Southwest
Bio-Laboratories and Ag-Biotech, respectively."

If these data are from independent testing of the same homogenized sample then we get a feel for the smallest possible error inherent in the method of measurement.

They were all from different samples at labs with different procedures and likely different contamination standards. We can say that standard deviation from a data sample consisting of 100 pods and therefore 100 data points is fairly high. This experiment shows that the TSMB likely has an unusually large standard deviation as well though its hard to tell without the full data set.
 
Why is that poor?

edit: I'm assuming you're pointing to the fact that the Bhut Jolokia was not the current hottest?

They missed a lot of important details, focusing only on work done by the institute and they hype up the high reading with no mention of drastically different low readings
 
I thought this might be a good place for some definitions. I think uncertainty about a number of terms is leading to confusion on the part of many. These are my own, off-the-cuff definitions and I welcome comments, corrections, suggestions, and additions. With a little lead-in commentary:

Landraces will almost always exhibit greater genetic variabililty than open-pollinated strains that have been selectively bred over time for a particular set of traits. Even these open-pollinated "pure strains" will exhibit some genetic variability, and good thing, too, else we wouldn't have a lot of the new varieties we like to play with today. The only way to get a sexually-reproduced variety that shows little to no variability is to hybridize two open-pollinated pure strains, each parent crop having been rogued before performing the hybridizing cross-pollination. (I'm thinking of large-scale efforts here. The same can be true for crosses between individual specimens.)

I have read elsewhere (ref. available on request) that for peppers, sixty plants is the minimum required to maintain the genetic diversity and relatively consistent phenotype of a particular Capsicum landrace or formal variety. That's a condition difficult to achieve for the hobbiest, but can be approximated with fewer plants per year by keeping seeds in cold storage for a years-long "longitudinal" breeding program. I think it is this inability to maintain a sufficiently broad genetic foundation, coupled with Capsicum's inherent diversity, that has led to the proliferation of varieties we are currently seeing. I think this is a good thing.

Landrace - a traditional plant variety, exhibiting a more or less uniform phenotype, that has developed over time as a result of natural selection and/or informal selection by local growers. Landraces are open-pollinated, but generally exhibit greater genetic variability than selectively-bred pure-strain varieties.

Open pollinated - a plant variety that, when pollinated by members of its own variety, produces progeny that largely reproduce the characteristics of the parent generation.

Pure strain - an open-pollinated plant variety that has been formally selected by plant breeders (professional and amateur) for a specific trait or set of traits. Pure strains exhibit less genetic variability than landraces, but more than F-1 hybrids.

F-1 hybrid - a plant variety that is the result of cross pollination between two different parent varieties. If the parent varieties are pure strain and rogued to remove off-types before performing the cross, the resulting F-1 hybrid generation will show the least genetic variability achievable via sexual reproduction (as opposed to asexual cloning). The progeny of F-1 hybrids will not be true to type, but may provide interesting starting material for further selection in a formal breeding program.

Cross pollination or out crossing - Pollination that occurs between plants of different varieties. Sometimes "cross pollination" is used to refer to pollination between two different members of the same self-pollinating plant variety. This is the case with peppers and I think has led to some confusion on occasion.

Rogue - (n.) an individual plant in a phenotypically consistent population that shows off-type characteristics. (v.) to remove said off-type individual from a breeding population

exactly ... great post, very clear

Essentially the landraces morouga are all characterized by the presence of fruit squat, with the tip partially hidden in the initial part and roughness accentuat, type brain

I grow this strain since 2008, but I know people who do it from the first (Chris)

Inside there is much variability .... for several years try to stabilize the more wrinkled and with the thin tip

In Trinidad there are several landraces ... but, in my opinion, none is considered pure strain ....

good work is done by CARDI ... and I understand their hesitancy to provide seeds which we also do the AISPES .... it is sad to see people who take your seeds and sells them, knowing that you want to distribute them for free once stabilized
 
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