So this yea I had some 'Megatron' Jalapeños that were barely hot. The whole plant, all year produced mild jalapeños. I've also had serranos that barely produced heat. A lot of people have noticed that even store habaneros are nothing like they used to be. I remember the first hab I ate, it was even green and it lit me up. Now if I don't grow it myself or get from a farmers market I know it's got nothing. (usually)
I know about the TAM jalapeño etc. I need some help getting true HOT peppers. I want real jalapeños and serranos. Some HOT Hatch chili's. I really want a good red habanero and some MOA Scotch Bonnet peppers. But I have no idea how to go about this other than checking out the internet sites.
You guys have any advice/info?
Why are peppers becoming less hot in the U.S.?
by SubstantialZebra1906
8 Comments
If you want hot peppers, check out pepper joes (it’s online though and I know you said “other than checking out internet sites”). My girlfriend bought me some seeds from them two years back; got Habaneros, Ghost Pepper, and Hot Mix pepper seeds. Holy hell, whatever they did to these things, they top their respective scoville capabilities! And the flavors! 10/10 man. I also dried out a ton of seeds for coming years, grew everything I got this year from last year’s seeds. I stand by this company now.
If you break a few branches, pluck off off a few leaves, the plant thinks it being attack by predators and produces more capsaicin.
I’ve got ghosts, red dragons and New Mexico from my local garden store and a single flake from the ghosts will knock your socks off. But any good seed company will have a variety of seeds that can light you up if that’s your goal. The fun part is experimenting and finding out what you like and how to process. 💡🔥🥵🌶️
FWIW I recently got a few “Pot-A-Peno” plants which ended up being a lot hotter than I expected for a modern Jalapeno variety, and they have been super productive.
If you want your peppers to produce more capsaicin, a sure fire way is to water stress them as they are ripening. Cut the water back to once a week or less.
I think the ones you want are called “early” jalapenos, or you could stick to the heirloom varieties when buying seed. There’s a lot of commercial breeds that are taking over that are losing their original flavour profile and heat and people are forgetting what these chillis are supposed to taste like.. it’s a gradual creep sometimes that most people don’t notice until one day they totally forget what the original is supposed to be like.
I gave up on jalapeños a couple years ago for this exact reason. I couldn’t get any that were hot. My dad claims that this was caused by some company that was trying to expand their customer base by making milder peppers, not that I believe it. I’ve transitioned to ghosts, habaneros and reapers and all of them were super hot this year.
Buy your seeds from the New Mexico State Chile Pepper Institute. There’s not a better place to get high quality seeds from than the OG research institute for chile peppers. I am biased since I’m alumnus, but give them a call and they are a great help.
https://chilepepperinstitute.ecwid.com/