Govenment / Research Peppers – What the hell are these?

Whilst surfing chile forums you may have seen pictures of exotic sounding varieties with secret code numbers rather than common names.

PI 281353, PI 315008, PI 315028, GRIF 9165 and CAP 501 are amongst the many varieties I’m growing this year and your probably wondering what the hell are these!

Believe it or not there are several government institutions and seed banks around the world committed to collecting, documenting and preserving chile seed stocks. Although there is little danger of the humble habenero going extinct, many chile varieties are so rare they are in danger of being lost forever and these institutions play an invaluable role in ensuring diversity is maintained. Each institution use their own mnemonics and numbering systems rather than common names to help them reference varieties. Many are so rare that they don’t have a common name. Amongst chile enthusiasts, they are often referred to as ‘Research or Government peppers’.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Plant Introduction (PI) system is probably the best known. The USDA hunts out and receives seed from all over the world and stores one of the worlds most extensive Chile seed collections them at its facility in Georgia. Observation data (which includes everything from the seed source to the size and shape of the parent plant and pods) is recorded upon arrival to the facility and a Plant Introduction number (PI ######) is then assigned. There are over 2000 PI varieties documented (some of which also have common names) and you can find them all listed in the chileman database.

For further information on other research organisations and classification systems in Holland (where the letters CGN prefixes varieties), Germany (CAP), Brazil (BGH), and Taiwan (CO) check out the chilemans guide to Seed Banks & Research Institutions.