Picking 2,407 chillies off a Dorset Naga plant

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• published: 15 Nov 2013
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Harvesting 2,407 red chillies (and 116 green chillies) off a 10.5 month old Dorset Naga plant. We breed, grow and sell chilli plants. One of our varieties, the Dorset Naga, belongs to a elite group of chillies that are called "Superhots". These are the world's hottest chillies, capable of extreme heat; for example, this year the average heat level of our Dorset Naga crop was 1.22 million SHU. As well as producing chillies of immense heat, most Superhots are capable of being very productive. Unfortunately, they are also difficult plants to grow and inexperienced grower can have trouble getting many fruit off their plant. To show what Dorset Naga is capable of we -- rather brashly -- claimed we could grow a plant that produced more than 1,000 chillies. We called it The Dorset Naga Challenge. We grew three large plants; one in a 160 litre pot (which got the nickname "Nigel"), the other two in 100 litre pots. The plants were selected from ones we were raising for sale. They were sown around 20th January 2013; and pricked out into 1 litre pots in February. They were kept in a heated greenhouse until the end of April when they were transferred to an unheated polytunnel. In May the selected plants were repotted into the large pots. The compost was mostly peat-free municipal compost, but we did use up old bags of other multipurpose compost. Dried chicken manure pellets was mixed into the compost. The plants were well watered throughout the season. Miracle Gro fertiliser was added very dilute normally about two or three times a week. In June the plants suffered a bad aphid infestation. Control was by washing plants down regularly, and the release of natural predators. The plants were picked on 9th November. The Clifton Chilli Club very kindly agreed to be the official adjudicators. The results were: Plant 1 ("Nigel") in 160 litre pot: • Number of chillies picked: 2,407 red chillies and 116 green chillies • Yield in weight: 9.535 kg red chillies and 0.265 kg green chillies • Plant size: 172 cm high and 256 cm wide ------------------------ Plant 2 (in 100 litre pot): • Number of chillies picked: 1,101 red chillies and 4 green chillies • Yield in weight: 4.570 kg all chillies ------------------------ Plant 3 (in 100 litre pot): • Number of chillies picked: 1,147 red chillies and 13 green chillies • Yield in weight: 4.060 kg all chillies