Dorset Naga
Cultivar · Dorset Naga Chilli
Developed in Dorset, England from a Naga Morich plant (native to Bangladesh/NE India) by Joy and Michael Michaud of Sea Spring Seeds, stabilized through selective breeding and released around 2005, gaining Plant Variety Protection in 2009. A naturally bred open-pollinated superhot with fruity floral aroma. Delayed onset with a deep escalating long-lasting burn.
History & lineage
Britain's own superhot, and for a time the hottest chilli ever recorded. Dorset Naga was bred by Michael and Joy Michaud at Sea Spring Seeds in west Dorset, starting from ten plants of naga morich — a Bangladeshi landrace — grown from stock bought at an Asian grocery in Bournemouth. It took roughly a decade of selection to produce a distinct, uniform and stable population adapted to British growing conditions.
In 2005 the Michauds picked one ripe fruit from each of around 240 plants, dried the harvest and sent it to the United States for analysis. One sample returned 1,598,227 Scoville Heat Units — at the time the highest figure ever published for a chilli. They told the Bridport News in March 2006, and the story went worldwide within a day.
The variety was submitted to the EU Community Plant Variety Office and put through three years of independent trials, gaining recognition as a new and distinct variety in 2009 along with Plant Breeders' Rights. Sea Spring give its working range as 800,000 to 1,600,000 SHU, averaging over a million.
Culinary uses
Fermented sauces with mango, tamarind or garlic; Bangladeshi-style pickles and chutneys; extreme hot sauces and marinades; spicy stews and soups; dehydrated powders for rubs.
Growing it in the UK
Chinense is the slow one. Seed can take three weeks to germinate and wants steady warmth to do it, so sow in January or February with a heated propagator and expect to ripen the fruit under cover. Germination is given as 10–21 days. 120 days to maturity is a long season for this country. Sow in February at the latest, and keep it under cover from September so the last fruit colours up.
At 60–90 cm this is a substantial plant. Give it a 10-litre pot or a greenhouse border, and stake it before the fruit sets rather than after. The compact habit makes it a good container plant and an easy one to keep on a windowsill. Yield is moderate, so a single plant is a taste and two or three are a supply.
This is superhot territory, and the handling advice is not decorative: wear gloves when cutting it, keep your hands away from your eyes for the rest of the day, and open a window before frying it — capsaicin in hot oil will clear a kitchen.
Read from this variety's own record — the figures are in the panel opposite.
Read more about Dorset Naga
All articles →Pepper X holds the record at 2,693,000 SHU. Almost everything else written on this subject is a claim with no paperwork behind it - so here is which figure came from where.
The most significant chilli ever bred in Britain started with naga morich seed from an Asian grocery, and took ten years of patient selection before anyone heard about it.
The Reaper held the world record for a decade and it will grow in a British greenhouse - but the difference between ripe pods and a compost heap is almost entirely about when you sowed.
