"Peter Lavington" wrote in message ...
I grew some chillis from seed this year. The originals were red chillis
bought from a supermarket and were fearsomely hot to eat. They have now
grown into nice plants with plenty of baby chillis. I've tasted a couple but
they just don't have any 'heat' in them at all. They are bright red and look
fully ripe to me. A few years ago I grew some from seed and they turned out
just as hot as the originals. What has gone wrong this time??

I've had this, too, with seed a friend brought back from somewhere. I
think it's partly our climate, since the rule seems to be 'the hotter
the conditions, the hotter the chillis' whatever variety you choose;
but also, and maybe more significantly, that the varieties grown in
the tropics for the supermarkets just aren't selected for our
conditions.

I think people here have in the past mentioned that you can even get
varied results from the _same plants_: I don't know that I've had
that, but I have sometimes had them seemingly hotter from one plant
than another when they were grown side by side.

Mike.