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Excitement is hotting up on a West Bexington farm and it's nothing
to do with the weather.
Chilli gurus Michael and Joy Michaud already have a world-wide
reputation for their fiery chilli the Dorset Naga that laid claim to
be the world's hottest chilli back in 2006.
Now they think they might be on the verge of breaking the one million
scoville heat barrier (a measure of chilli heat) with a possible two
new plants - one completely unrelated to the hot Naga type.
The Dorset Naga was measured as 970,000 in 2006, and broke a million
in 2009.
One of the new possible 'super hots' came via a tortuous route
through Ghana and Canada.
Mr Michaud said: "A Ghanaian immigrant Raj Kumar grows chillis
on his allotment in London and contacted me out of the blue with some
seeds his daughter picked up while visiting relatives in Canada.
"He said they were this and that, but they weren't any of them.
This was an unpromising start and we only grew three plants because
the seeds didn't germinate too well.
"So far the fruits have tested only just slightly milder than
the Dorset Naga but we have high hopes this is going to be another
'super hot'."
The second exciting new find seems to have come as somewhat of a
surprise too and was sent to the Michauds from the Harper Adams
agricultural college in Shropshire.
Mr Michaud said: "The woman there in charge of the greenhouses
wanted to grow a lot of chillies and had some of our Dorset Nagas
which she wanted to compare with some Indian Bhut Jolokia seeds
bought from Suttons. She had an 'off-type' she gave to us and we
managed to overwinter it - now it's producing white fruits.
"We will have it tested and have high hopes for it. "It's
working name is the Bengle Naga, after our son Ben.
"From now on we're making up a whole new concept and we are
going to call them the 'super hots' - anything over 500,000 scoville
heat units."
The Michauds are also teaming up with fellow chilli grower Mat
Simpson to launch britainshottestchilli.co.uk "We will encourage
people who grow hot chillis to have them tested in a lab. If the
results are record breaking they can send us the results and we'll
put them on the website, so it's a lot on people's honour. "It
won't be official, it's not a competition, it's just a bit of
fun."
Michaud continues to push at the boundaries of chilli cultivation and
has high hopes for the new cross breeds but for now it is a question
of wait and see.
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