Purple Thunder/Bhut Jalokia trial 2020

[glen]

These are todays foto's of Purple Thunder plants.  They are not looking real pretty.  However, they look pretty good in the conditions that are present.  These poor plants are surviving.  Not thriving.  Super high winds.  Super bright intense sun.  They are growing now.  I need to find taller stakes for them.  I have never tried growing peppers in such harsh conditions so I have to say they are doing pretty good.  You can see the leaf curl on the leaf which is a defense mechanism from the sun and wind.
Hopefully, when conditions change, these plants will get prettier.  Some of the plants have begun to make blossoms.

[glen]

Peppers at the bottom are Ahi Chombo's. These are the common hot peppers that are available in the super-market. I grew these. They are easy to grow. They are spicey. Just spicy enough. About the same heat level as habenero pepper's. They are very closely related to Jamaican Scotch Bonnet's. They have a fruity taste to them with a sneaky level of heat. I consider them spicey. I highly recommend this pepper. They come in yellow or red. They are not as fun to grow as other variety's for me because they are available in the super-market here. But, I can understand why folks like them. Panama does not grow any other variety's of hot peppers for the super-market. If I can successfully discover the secret to growing super-hot peppers here I will have to blend them with the Chombo's or possibly Paper Lantern peppers in recipes. Bhut Jalokia is just too hot to be used solo in a chili oil or sauce. Right now, I have too many variety's of peppers growing in the yard. As hard as it might be to do I have to narrow this down and grow fewer, more useful peppers next year. That will make seed saving etc much easier.

[macmex]

Here's an interesting/strange anecdote: normally when I have a cold, my heat tolerance plummets and I cannot handle much in the line of hot peppers. Just the other day I came down with flu type A and had to take two days off of work. During that time my appetite pretty much disappeared. We do have some rabbit stew, in individual serving containers, in the fridge. So, twice, out of thinking that it was the right thing to do, I dug one up and heated it for myself. In each case, when I took a bite, I found it just didn't taste right. I pulled out a flask of ghost pepper sauce, which a friend at work had given me and shook some into the stew. Immediately it tasted much better and I could eat it. Yesterday I gave the sauce more than just a couple shakes, and this apparently made my taste buds approve. I was able to eat! This is the opposite of my past experiences.

[glen]

I don't think its strange at all. Your story is positive for the merits of super-hot peppers. Used sparingly they are very useful in the kitchen. I bet only a drop or 2 of that sauce adds a lot of character to a bowl of soup. What I am finding out though, is that growing super-hots is not easy. They grow so slow for one thing and they are sensitive plants. I am at ground zero right now, trying to learn how to grow these peppers. If I am fortunate to be able to produce some seed I will send you some. I believe they are worth trying. This wind and heat is wreaking havoc on my pepper grow this go round. I planted to late. I am going to have to be very persistent if I want to learn how to grow this special category of chili's. Temps are in the 90's right now mid-afternoon, with steady high winds and clear sky's. Humidity is probably low since we haven't had rain in months. Its real hard on pepper plants.

[rdback]

Plants are looking good Glen, especially in the conditions you describe. Those Chombo's are beautiful.

[glen]

Thanx Rick. Those chombo's came from some seed I planted in July or so, in the middle of the rainy season. Plants are bigger and are holding up in this harsh weather. They are in the ground in a raised bed. I had pretty much neglected those plants and then it seems like out of no-where they are producing nicely. I am splitting those fruits, deseeding them, and chopping them in a food processor kind of coursely. I add garlic, salt, msg, sugar and boil this in vinegar for several minutes. Then I spoon the mixture into a jar to make a kind of Chombo relish. I learned in my experimentation that throwing away the solids is a bad idea. They taste delicious. Easy to make. Now, I have visions for later. I want to try mixing super-hots into this recipe. I don't know what the ratio will be yet. This will require experimentation. I will start out probably with 1 super hot pepper to 5 chombo's. If its too hot, I will try 1 super hot to 7 chombo's. And, so on, until I get the ratio right. I am just about 100% positive that I could not handle a pure super-hot chili relish. The Chombo's have incredible flavor. I can't wait for you to try it.

[glen]

Ok, from now on I will be referring to the Purple Thunder plants as PT's. I have 3 strains of PT outside plus 2 strains of Bhut Jalokia. They all present pretty much the same. All strains are beginning to throw off blooms. The interesting part about this is how many blooms are showing in the nodes. I have seen as many as 6 blooms in each node. Most Chinense variety's make 1 to 3 blooms per node. Bhuts make many more. And, when a bloom drops they replace the bloom in the node. Some of the PT plants are extremely beautiful. Dark purple stems and stalks with leaves that are a mix of green and purple. Some of the prettiest pepper plants I have ever seen. If I get lucky the weather will turn around for me so the plants have a chance to show me just how pretty they can be. This is the reason I am growing them. I have never seen anything like them. My camera doesn't do them justice.

[glen]

I haven't started a thread on this yet but I intend to. Rick sent me 8 different variety's of super-hot seed. Thank you Rick. This was a special gift and I intend to make a big deal out of it by starting a thread on this new grow. I sewed the seed towards the end of January. There are several strains of bhut-jalokia. There are several strains of Carolina Reaper. There is also the scary variety called Dragon's breath. Germination was good and the little seedlings are all about 14 days old plus or minus. I have the pots and the materials. There will be one plant in each pot. Pots will be the 1200 series nursery pot-2.35 gallon pots. I have some organic material to mix in the pots with the yard dirt. Seedlings are growing incredibly slow so it will be a couple of weeks before transplanting them to the larger pots. This is an incredible opportunity to grow some very rare chili peppers. I hope you join me to view the foto's on the new thread.

[glen]

I wasn't going to take foto's for a couple more weeks but the plants are growing now.  I was told that the plants would eventually take off.  Well, they are taking off.  I have to look in my notebook to know the names of the variety's.  All plants are blooming.  I was also told that bloom's may fall off the plants or abort for awhile.  I am noticing this to some extent.  Some of the blooms may pollenate which would be unusual so early.  Bhut Jalokia is supposed to take 120 days from germination to harvest.   Plants are just about 60 days old.  A couple of days ago one plant broke off mid-way up the stalk.  That scared me.  The plant is un-harmed and quickly throwing off new shoots at all nodes.  Here's foto's

[rdback]

Plants sure look healthy Glen. Nice, vibrant green color, and LOTS of flowers!

The plant that snapped off must be a new "self-topping" variety lol. It is rebounding nicely. With all those new lateral branches, it'll be a huge bush in no time!

Keep after it!

[glen]

Hello to everyone!  I decided to take foto's early since the plants are blooming and setting fruits!!!  I am pleasantly surprised.  Weather is extremely hot at 33 C every day at least plus the sun is super bright and intense and the wind is 25 mph or more now coming out of the North.  I have the plants up against the house to protect them from the wind and sun.  They don't get more than a few hours each day of direct sunlight.  Plants show leaf curl and are deformed on some plants from the intense sun.  I thought it was leaf curl virus but it is probably just sun burn.  Some plants show wind burn also.  I have a lot of pepper plants in the back yard and none are setting fruit or blooming now either except for these PT and Bhut Jolokia plants.  At first a few blossoms were dropping off the plants.  Now they are all setting fruit's.  In 93 F weather!!  Pretty incredible.  Plants don't look fantastic but that is understandable in the high wind and temperatures.  I have to water frequently.  I have a very bad nematode problem now with my annuum's.  Bhut Jolokia is immune to nematodes.  Not a single issue with nematodes.  Plants look excellent in the conditions they are surviving in. 

 

[macmex]

You're going to be well fixed for hot peppers! I'm almost ready to start my pepper seeds for this year.

[glen]

My freezer is already full of many bags of hot peppers. I eat a lot of hot peppers now but I can't keep up with them.
I have hot peppers coming in now from the garden and they have been coming in for quite awhile. Chombo's mostly. Thai hot peppers are still loaded down and they are just drying on the plants. The most productive peppers I have ever grown are the thai hot's. They absolutely love the Panamanian climate.

[rdback]

Plants are looking great Glen! Covered with blooms and pods. Looking forward to your harvests!

You cannot have too many peppers in the freezer lol.

[glen]

Purple thunder

Orange Chocolate Bhut

Purple Thunder with pods

Green Purple Thunder variant with pods

Orange Copenhagen Bhut with pods

Bhut Jolokia seedling

Carolina Reaper seedling Yellow

Dragon's Breath seedling

Bhut Jolokia seedling

Paper Lantern with ripe pods

Vierra Jalepeno 

Biker Billy Jalepeno

Vierra Jalepeno

Tobasco

Tobasco

Chombo Red

Hon Gochu seedlings



Sun Burned Bhut

Sun Burned seedling


These photo's were taken yesterday-3.15-2020  Not all the plants are super-hots.  I repotted 10 super-hot seedlings yesterday also.  Its so hot that the plants are getting sun-burned.  The wind is still burning the plants also.  I had to move many plants today to more protected area's.  We have clear sky's now and brutal intense sun plus high winds.  Temp's are still in the 90's F.  93 F or better by 2 pm.  When you plant chili's in pots they just cannot take the intense sun and wind.  Some variety's can survive better than others.  Super hots are delicate and must be protected.  You can click on the thumb nails to see better foto's.