Growing, Sampling and Testing in 2006 In May 2006 three plants of Dorset Naga were donated to the BBC “Gardeners’ World” to take part in a chilli trial. The plants were grown in 9 inch pots, bottom-watered by capillary matting and kept in an unheated greenhouse. In September, Dorset Naga along with all the other chillies in the trial were harvested and tested for heat level at Warwick HRI, the horticulture research department of the University of Warwick (see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/whri/). The results of the chilli trial were reported on the TV show “Gardeners’ World” on BBC2 on Friday 20th October 2006: Dorset Naga came in at 1,598,227 SHU. We are not fully confident of this result as it is such an extreme figure. However, even if possible errors are taken into account the true heat level of the Dorset Naga chillies grown in the BBC trial is likely to be considerably over a million SHU. Our own crop of Dorset Naga was tested by Certified Laboratores in the USA. Over a hundred whole, dried pods were sent to the Lab, where they were ground into a powder and analysed for their heat level. The sample was tested to have a heat level of 960,000 SHU.
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