United Kingdom
July 30, 2019
Armageddon makes headlines, the newest chilli to come from the chilli breeding program of Tozer Seeds certainly set pulses racing, as seen on Good Morning Britain today. It’s a new super-hot chilli, the first British-bred hybrid and has been scored at 1.3 million on the Scoville scale.
Super-hot chillies are challenging to grow but in breeding Armageddon, Tozer Seeds have developed the variety to be quicker and easier to harvest, higher yielding and more uniform than traditional O.P. varieties. Dr Jamie Claxton, Director of Plant Breeding explained that “Armageddon has been in development for 5 years and is just one of the chillies being developed in our Chilli Breeding Program, which aims to breed more niche varieties better suited to UK growing conditions”.
Tozer Seeds have been working with the UK’s largest grower of chilli peppers, Salvatore Genovese who is based in Bedfordshire, for over 15 years. He is supplying Tesco with Armageddon this season and he is also trialling a range of varieties still in development including a very promising standard red chilli.
James Hatherill, European Sales Director for Tozer Seeds said “As a company we continue to source interesting and novel sweet and hot pepper material, either through our global contact network, or more recently from our own breeding program. Working with Salvatore and other UK growers, we can test these genetics with the hope that one of the UK multiples will then take the product to launch; Tesco has been instrumental in developing and promoting hard the `Super Hot’ types, which we applaud”.
United Kingdom
July 29, 2019
Armageddon – first British bred chilli
Tozer Seeds has a long history of innovation in plant breeding and now one of our latest varieties is making headlines.
Our variety, Armageddon, which has been in development for 5 years is the first British bred hybrid super-hot chilli to come out of our chilli breeding program. It’s making waves now that the fruits are being sold in Tesco with a score of 1.3 million on the Scoville scale for heat, a close second to the hottest chilli, the Carolina Reaper, recorded at 1.5 million.
Super-hot chillies are notoriously difficult to grow because of slow germination, slow growth and low yields. Our breeding program is developing hybrid varieties, using traditional methods of breeding, which make the plants more vigorous, easy to grow, earlier to pick and much higher yielding and uniform than older varieties such as the Carolina Reaper.
The chilli breeding program isn’t only about heat, other varieties are in development including a standard green chilli for the UK market (which has unique requirements). We also have a pot plant chilli program developing early fruiting, compact varieties aimed at the growing trend in UK supermarkets for living produce.
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