I'm eager to find out what varieties Tom grows.

Every once in a while I'll be in a restaurant where someone asks "don't you have any hotter sauce than THAT?" Then, sometimes, the waiter will nod knowingly and say he has JUST the thing. That usually makes the customer pour sweat out of every pore and clench his teeth while trying to be nonchalant and say "Yessssss, that'sssssss pretty hot."

Is that the kind of thing you sell, Tom?

I think it's hilarious that Naga Jolokia and Trinidad Scorpion have 50% the strength of civilian-grade self-defense pepper spray! "HALT, or I'll season you!!"

tveguy3 said:It's Cycadjungle who makes 30 lbs. of chili powder, not me. I use a lot, but nothing near that! Some years, most likely this is one of them, the season isn't long enough for them to ripen. Of course if the weight is of the peppers before drying, it might be a lot less.

LOL, Tom -- it seems that you and Cycadjungle share the same first name... good thing we have weird user names!

OK figured that out later, It's nice when people have their name on their posts. avoids confusion. Well, not all confusion, as I age, I find myself confused more often!

Thanks everyone for clearing that up. My main business at the nursery is cycads, and my business is called The Cycad Jungle, that is why i can take pictures of so many plants. As a fun side line i just started a few years ago, I started growing hot peppers. It was mainly for a joke to burn the face off my next door neighbor who was bragging about being able to eat a habanero and when he refused to try one of my ghost peppers, I had to do something with the material. Since I already sold cycad seeds through an internet list i put out every few months, i started selling seed. That has progressed into Seriously Hot Peppers, which is really still just getting started. I send boxes of fresh peppers all over the US. I sell seeds, powder, and pepper plants. Even though i grow some that are not super hots, like yellow Fataliis, you are right, I have all the hottest peppers in the world and have all the scoville numbers of each pepper memorized, like the old Guinness book record was the Trinidad Butch T Scorpion at 1,463,700! It has been fun because i am already a plant collector, so finding all the hottest peppers, and being able to be growing the next world record holder before it becomes the next record holder has me finding new things to try from all over the world. Here is my grow list from the website, and I'll add few more that I haven't added yet:
Carolina Reapers, Moruga Scorpion, both red and yellow Trinidad Butch T. Scorpion, red and yellow 7 pod Brain Strain (my favorites), yellow and red Fatalii, yellow 7 pod, 7 pod Jonah, 7 pod Douglah, Bhut Jolokia, and Naga Morich. 7 pod Primos,Peach Bhut Jolokia, Jay's Peach Ghost Scorpion, Chocolate Habanero, Chocolate Bhut Jolokia,7 pod burgundy, Aji lemon, Fatalii Gourmet Jigsaw.
As an example. I got some of the first available reaper seeds a year before they become the new world record holder. I have tried all the hottest ones just in case they are hotter, because even with the variety I have, 90% of my sales are for, " what do you have that is the hottest" what I do is sell fresh peppers but i can't sell everything I produce every week. Sometimes I sell most everything i have and sometimes I don't sell anything and that is why I make powder.
I can talk all day about plants and/or peppers, but if we talk to much about the plants, maybe I should start a hot pepper thread in one of the growing sections. BTW, the primos are hotter than the current world record holder. Tom

>> as I age, I find myself confused more often!

That's just wisdom getting in the way of certainty.

Tom - Cycad, I would love to read a hot pepper thread. I don't know why I'm so fascinated, since my endurance is around 10-15 K SHU, and I can't even grow them, but they do fascinate me.

Someone claimed that Ghost Naga or Bhut Jolokia were grown in India to be rubbed on fences to keep wild elephants out of the fields.

I don't know about that, but I sometimes sprinkle Thai chili flakes on my raised beds to deter squirrels and wild elephants. It keeps the elephants out really well, I've never seen a single wild elephant browsing my Bok Choy. Squirrels seem to be made of tougher stuff.

>>Someone claimed that Ghost Naga or Bhut Jolokia were grown in India to be rubbed on fences to keep wild elephants out of the fields.

Rick, WHY didn't I have that information when I had all those habaneros?? If I did, I could have gotten rid of those pesky wooly mammoths that live up here

I love growing and using hot peppers, but just can't do (and don't understand why anyone wants to) the SUPER hot ones. Still, there's definitely a market for them and for some reason they seem to grow well for me... maybe I should give some thought to that!

It is true about the elephants, but what the real story is, is that Bhut Jolokias are the most grown hot peppers in the world. They are mostly grown in the northeastern corner of India. There are miles of these plants being grown, but for food uses. They don't want elephants smashing all the pepper plants, so they do smear pepper materials on the fences. Pepper materials have been used to deter all kinds of little animals by gardeners for years. I can tell you from experience, it works on deer as well.
So, a new thread just about hot peppers. I'm all for starting one. Where in all these categories do we want to do this? Tom

I'm thinking the "Edibles and Preserving" forum ?

Or maybe we just need a "peppers" forum?

I've been looking and except for all things gardening, maybe this is the best area. If we stick with hot peppers and not a lot of time with the cultivation part, we should be good.

BTW, here is a thread that carries the chili powder discussion onward ...

The thread "Extra Hot peppers" in Vegetables and Fruit forum

Thanks RC!