Kalyx
Active Member
Ha. Ghost chiles, meh. Some americans can't pronounce their real name so just anglecized this awesome variety into some tangentially related false translation (plant naming is confusing enough without slang/makeup/popular names being thrown in, ok im off the soapbox).
Bhut Jolokias will hybridize with all your other varieties (they are a hybrid of ancestral varieties themselves)so try to go back to the original seed each year to keep them consistent. You can see in some of my pics I got a yellow Bhut Jolokia plant (recessive? yellow chile) from my seeds off my original red one the year before (it wasn't as hot as the reds but had more fruity interesting tones in the flavor). I also got some orange to pink orange ripe ones on some of the F2 seed plants. The varieties I've seen for sale are Bhut Jolokia (the red ones) Yellow Bhut Jolokia, and I even overwintered a chocolate Bhut Jolokia (brown pods) that didn't have enough time to yield me pods/seed last year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhut_Jolokia_chili_pepper
The pepper is called by different names in different regions. An article in the Asian Age newspaper stated that experts in Assam are worried about a distortion of the colloquial nomenclature of "Bhot" to "bhut", saying that this word was misinterpreted by the (Western) media to mean "ghost".[SUP][13][/SUP][SUP][14][/SUP] The article stated that people living north of the Brahmaputra River call the pepper "Bhot jolokia", "Bhot" meaning "of Bhotiya origin", or something that has come from the hills of adjoining Bhutan; on the southern bank of the river Brahmaputra, this chili becomes Naga jolokia, believed to have originated from the hills of Nagaland.[SUP][13][/SUP] An alternative source for Naga jolokia is that the name originates from the ferociousNaga warriors inhabiting Nagaland.[SUP][15][/SUP] Further complicating matters, a 2009 paper, published in the Asian Agri-History journal, coined the English term "Naga king chili" and stated that the most common Indian (Assamese) usage is bhoot jolokia,[SUP][16][/SUP][SUP][17][/SUP] which refers to the chili's large pod size, and gives the alternate common name as bih jolokia (bih means "poison" in Assamese, denoting the plant's heat). The assertion that bhut (bhoot) means "ghost" is claimed by researchers from the New Mexico State University, but as in the article from the Asian Age,
denied by Indian researchers from Nagaland University.[SUP][11][/SUP][SUP][16][/SUP] The Assamese word "jolokia" simply means the Capsicum pepper. Other usages on the subcontinent are saga jolokia, Indian mystery chili, and Indian rough chili (after the chili's rough skin).[SUP][16][/SUP][SUP][18][/SUP] It has also been called the Tezpur chili after the Assamese city ofTezpur.[SUP][15][/SUP] In Manipur, the chili is called umorok,[SUP][19][/SUP] or oo-morok (oo = "tree", morok = "chili").
One thing I love about this variety is how they are Rasta colored when ripening. They start green, then turn yellowish, then orange into red. So a ripening harvest will look Rasta colored as the first ones get to red. The other pic is my "mother" Jolokia which looked very true to the Bhuts descrption. It is from F1 seed from NMSU (Jolokia seed produced in NM), my F2 seed from this plant produced more true looking plants, one pure yellow, some pink and one orange pheno the second year. When I grow them again I always go back to my oldest seed stock. It is somewhat unstable stock but I just go back to the seed that this plant produced (which is still spicy enough to gag me years later!) This one yielded 2ish pounds of chile which I made all into mash w/out seeds so I've got TONS of seed from 1 individual. It was grown in my greenhouse (will not go from flower to fruit for me indoors, it needs real sun and heat) in a 6 gallon mesh bottom pot with 50% old indoor reused soil, 50% coco coir and Age old bloom plus other organic goodies. Cheers other stoned chileheads! Per my wifes request I have only 1 superhot this year. Trinidad Scorpions! The rest of my chile plants are less extreme more edible by the masses varieties this year. Superhots are superfun tho!
Bhut Jolokias will hybridize with all your other varieties (they are a hybrid of ancestral varieties themselves)so try to go back to the original seed each year to keep them consistent. You can see in some of my pics I got a yellow Bhut Jolokia plant (recessive? yellow chile) from my seeds off my original red one the year before (it wasn't as hot as the reds but had more fruity interesting tones in the flavor). I also got some orange to pink orange ripe ones on some of the F2 seed plants. The varieties I've seen for sale are Bhut Jolokia (the red ones) Yellow Bhut Jolokia, and I even overwintered a chocolate Bhut Jolokia (brown pods) that didn't have enough time to yield me pods/seed last year.
These asian chiles got misnamed by some slangers at NMSU. Below is a wiki paste on how many names they have and which ones are accurate (just depends on where you are). Basically it sounds very similar to our New Mexico chile heritage. They all evolved from common ancestors and because they are open pollinated, slightly divergent paths of evolution took place in the different isolated regions. (ie chimayo, espanola, and sandia all evolved from a similar gene pool, just along slightly different paths so in a few hundred years they can be identified as different varieties with different growth and pod traits and can still hybridize with one another if grown in close enough proximity)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhut_Jolokia_chili_pepper
The pepper is called by different names in different regions. An article in the Asian Age newspaper stated that experts in Assam are worried about a distortion of the colloquial nomenclature of "Bhot" to "bhut", saying that this word was misinterpreted by the (Western) media to mean "ghost".[SUP][13][/SUP][SUP][14][/SUP] The article stated that people living north of the Brahmaputra River call the pepper "Bhot jolokia", "Bhot" meaning "of Bhotiya origin", or something that has come from the hills of adjoining Bhutan; on the southern bank of the river Brahmaputra, this chili becomes Naga jolokia, believed to have originated from the hills of Nagaland.[SUP][13][/SUP] An alternative source for Naga jolokia is that the name originates from the ferociousNaga warriors inhabiting Nagaland.[SUP][15][/SUP] Further complicating matters, a 2009 paper, published in the Asian Agri-History journal, coined the English term "Naga king chili" and stated that the most common Indian (Assamese) usage is bhoot jolokia,[SUP][16][/SUP][SUP][17][/SUP] which refers to the chili's large pod size, and gives the alternate common name as bih jolokia (bih means "poison" in Assamese, denoting the plant's heat). The assertion that bhut (bhoot) means "ghost" is claimed by researchers from the New Mexico State University, but as in the article from the Asian Age,
denied by Indian researchers from Nagaland University.[SUP][11][/SUP][SUP][16][/SUP] The Assamese word "jolokia" simply means the Capsicum pepper. Other usages on the subcontinent are saga jolokia, Indian mystery chili, and Indian rough chili (after the chili's rough skin).[SUP][16][/SUP][SUP][18][/SUP] It has also been called the Tezpur chili after the Assamese city ofTezpur.[SUP][15][/SUP] In Manipur, the chili is called umorok,[SUP][19][/SUP] or oo-morok (oo = "tree", morok = "chili").
One thing I love about this variety is how they are Rasta colored when ripening. They start green, then turn yellowish, then orange into red. So a ripening harvest will look Rasta colored as the first ones get to red. The other pic is my "mother" Jolokia which looked very true to the Bhuts descrption. It is from F1 seed from NMSU (Jolokia seed produced in NM), my F2 seed from this plant produced more true looking plants, one pure yellow, some pink and one orange pheno the second year. When I grow them again I always go back to my oldest seed stock. It is somewhat unstable stock but I just go back to the seed that this plant produced (which is still spicy enough to gag me years later!) This one yielded 2ish pounds of chile which I made all into mash w/out seeds so I've got TONS of seed from 1 individual. It was grown in my greenhouse (will not go from flower to fruit for me indoors, it needs real sun and heat) in a 6 gallon mesh bottom pot with 50% old indoor reused soil, 50% coco coir and Age old bloom plus other organic goodies. Cheers other stoned chileheads! Per my wifes request I have only 1 superhot this year. Trinidad Scorpions! The rest of my chile plants are less extreme more edible by the masses varieties this year. Superhots are superfun tho!
