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Primo Santeria
In 2006, Mark McMullan sold five sets of Naga Morich seeds on eBay to fund his website thechileman.org. He claimed to have obtained the seeds from a local Bangladeshi food merchant and grew out the seeds in 2005. Later on this pepper was na...med the Dorset Naga, which was somewhat controversial. See attached link. Anyway, four sets went to UK backyard growers, and one set to me. At the time I was a nursing student, taking biology classes, cultivating a small 20x20 organic garden consisting of mostly peppers obtained from seed gathered cloak and dagger at the local master gardener plot. ha So, when I saw this ebay listing and forum talk about a "worlds hottest pepper", I jumped at the chance. My fiancee' thought I was nuts!! We are talking $40+ dollars for 10-15 seeds. I can't remember the quantity, but at the time it seemed insane. So, I grew out six plants organically without use of pesticides, covered them with bug netting to prevent cross pollination, and harvested and cleaned the seed. At the time I worked in the ULL Department of Renewable Resources, which happened to house the Horticulture department. Information/access to the professors was literally a walk across the hall. So, as an afterthought, I decided to sell the seeds online "organically and grown free of pesticides". I decided to lower the price and give double the seed. I didn't change the name or do any crossing. Surprisingly, I made about 100x my investment in a year's time. Hell, it inspired me to change my major. I totally became enthralled and addicted to pepper. I guess you could say I was before ordering the naga, but the thought of making a living doing what I loved was tantalizing. At this time a professor friend gave me a pepper that his friend obtained from a recent trip to Trinidad. The pepper was a 7 Pot and the old lady who gave it to him claimed it was used to heat seven pots of stew. It was somewhat hab shaped, warty, and hellaciously hot. So, I decided to cross the 7 pot with the Naga to see what would happen. Hell Hot + Hell Hot = Double Hell Hot was my rational. ha Whereas, I had forged an underground history playing music in the late 90's with SANTERIA, I was now going to school later in life, loving the research, plants, the vibe of campus, and the general direction of obtaining an education. For several years I crossed the pepper to self, selecting the meanest and hottest pods.... My buddy Chris Phillips on the hotpepper forum either traded or purchased some seed from me. I tossed in the 7 Pot, but didn't name it.... Just something interesting for him to try growing. Well, Chris liked it so much, he started posting, spreading the word, taking pictures, etc... That was it. As I continued the R&D, the name and seed spread. Literally all over the world. Amazing. I guess I was at the right place, and did the right thing twice in my life. The band got back together to make an album in 2009, but I continued to experiment, grow new varieties, keep the garden up, etc... I produced the Brother Dege album, and I'm now producing the new Brother Dege album. I guess I just changed my focus to music. I became a little jaded that so many companies had made money on the naga. Yes, kind of hypocritical, but I knew had I the infrastructure, I could have done more. I've never felt a need to validate myself, though this post may win length awards on FB. ha So, with that said, I hope I answered some questions. ha Rock on fellow pepper heads"
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Primo Santeria
In 2006, Mark McMullan sold five sets of Naga Morich seeds on eBay to fund his website thechileman.org. He claimed to have obtained the seeds from a local Bangladeshi food merchant and grew out the seeds in 2005. Later on this pepper was na...med the Dorset Naga, which was somewhat controversial. See attached link. Anyway, four sets went to UK backyard growers, and one set to me. At the time I was a nursing student, taking biology classes, cultivating a small 20x20 organic garden consisting of mostly peppers obtained from seed gathered cloak and dagger at the local master gardener plot. ha So, when I saw this ebay listing and forum talk about a "worlds hottest pepper", I jumped at the chance. My fiancee' thought I was nuts!! We are talking $40+ dollars for 10-15 seeds. I can't remember the quantity, but at the time it seemed insane. So, I grew out six plants organically without use of pesticides, covered them with bug netting to prevent cross pollination, and harvested and cleaned the seed. At the time I worked in the ULL Department of Renewable Resources, which happened to house the Horticulture department. Information/access to the professors was literally a walk across the hall. So, as an afterthought, I decided to sell the seeds online "organically and grown free of pesticides". I decided to lower the price and give double the seed. I didn't change the name or do any crossing. Surprisingly, I made about 100x my investment in a year's time. Hell, it inspired me to change my major. I totally became enthralled and addicted to pepper. I guess you could say I was before ordering the naga, but the thought of making a living doing what I loved was tantalizing. At this time a professor friend gave me a pepper that his friend obtained from a recent trip to Trinidad. The pepper was a 7 Pot and the old lady who gave it to him claimed it was used to heat seven pots of stew. It was somewhat hab shaped, warty, and hellaciously hot. So, I decided to cross the 7 pot with the Naga to see what would happen. Hell Hot + Hell Hot = Double Hell Hot was my rational. ha Whereas, I had forged an underground history playing music in the late 90's with SANTERIA, I was now going to school later in life, loving the research, plants, the vibe of campus, and the general direction of obtaining an education. For several years I crossed the pepper to self, selecting the meanest and hottest pods.... My buddy Chris Phillips on the hotpepper forum either traded or purchased some seed from me. I tossed in the 7 Pot, but didn't name it.... Just something interesting for him to try growing. Well, Chris liked it so much, he started posting, spreading the word, taking pictures, etc... That was it. As I continued the R&D, the name and seed spread. Literally all over the world. Amazing. I guess I was at the right place, and did the right thing twice in my life. The band got back together to make an album in 2009, but I continued to experiment, grow new varieties, keep the garden up, etc... I produced the Brother Dege album, and I'm now producing the new Brother Dege album. I guess I just changed my focus to music. I became a little jaded that so many companies had made money on the naga. Yes, kind of hypocritical, but I knew had I the infrastructure, I could have done more. I've never felt a need to validate myself, though this post may win length awards on FB. ha So, with that said, I hope I answered some questions. ha Rock on fellow pepper heads"
This is indeed an interesting story - and credit for the idea of crossing these two peppers... However, I am having a hard time following this story, it seems to me that it would be quite hard to stabilize the cross over "several years" keeping in mind that, as i understand it, the cross was made in 2007, thus the initial cross (F1) could be grown out in 2008 and Christopher Phillips sells pods of the 7 Pot Primo on this forum already in 2010. This leaves us with 1 year (2009) for growing out the F2-generaton and selecting. So I guess Chris didn't receive a stabilized variety? Or did i get something wrong? Well, nevermind the details - these were just my thoughts - I must say I have to agree with Peter from Semillas that this kind of work does not make you a pepper crossing guru...
My vote goes to Paul Bosland and Mario Dadomo, but then again these are professionals and I guess that the guide on fatalii.net has inspired a lot of people to make their own crosses (also me) but the two aforementioned pros have released a lot of interesting varieties that can be used for further breeding programmes...
I Butch Taylor crossed Trinidad Scorpion with...? , no, Butch gave away his seeds to a number of people and some, if not all, were crosses between whatever he had at his field.
The historical progression of this pepper (Or maybe "back story" would be correct?) has been documented by some of the participants in its evolution at History of Trinidad Scorpion Butch T.POTAWIE said:I very much doubt that the Butch T was a cross, I think it would have been fairly obvious to those of us who have grown it for many years