b'We taste every pepper before decid-ing to use it. Even superhot peppers must have good flavour, he says. The Carolina Reaper is sweet at first, then the heat hits. Thats why sauces made with it taste great. Balancing flavour with capsaicin is key.And in fact, about 50% of his breed-ing is for milder peppers to increase yield and lower production costs.What Comes After Pepper X?And of course, Currie will keep working to create hotter peppers.We already have hotter ones, he says. There is one that is stable and four or five more were chasing. I grow a lot of peppers. A lot. When you put a 10-acreHot sauce bottles move through a filling line at Pucker Butt Pepper Company,showing how field out of something youre chasing, orsuperhot pepper genetics translate into scaled production.Photo: Ed Currietrying to stabilize, because of the natural genetics of the plant, youre going to get six to eight different colours coming outThat unit is really cool, and itsrandom. And after the testing is done at of the same field. about 90% accurate to the HPLC thatthe university, well decide which one toPucker Butt has 11 colours ofyou find in the chemistry lab, Curriefocus on, Currie says. Carolina Reaper ranging from white tosays.That means Currie will be eating a lot pitch back. For Pepper Y, which will beThe peppers that score the highest onmore hot peppers in the coming years. the next pepper, Currie currently has fourCurries farm get sent to the universityIts who he is.or five different colours and uses a mobilelab for testing.I see myself as one cog in a large HPLC unit to test each colour and chooseWe have students go through thewheel working to improve the market the two that score the highest.field and pick the peppers so its totallyand educate the public, he says. STRENGTH POWERED BY THE SEA. Improved germination, seedling emergence, and early root growth? Your seed treatment just got more muscle. Tidal Grow GENBOOST pumps up seed performance and plant defense.MARCH 2026SEEDWORLD.COM/CANADA 33'