Nov 19, 2012
Grower promotes health benefits of hot peppers

Ed Currie has a passion for hot peppers going back 30 years. But his passion doesn’t derive from a love of spicy cuisine. Rather, he sees many health benefits in the peppers, and is working to increase those benefits in new varieties with record-setting heat ratings.

“I started researching cancer because I didn’t want to die, and I discovered all the areas around the globe that have low indices of heart disease and cancer have one thing in common,” he said.

That commonality is peppers, and it set him off on a mission to not only grow his own, but to research how to increase their disease-fighting properties.

Currie is owner and operator of PuckerButt Pepper Co. in Fort Mill, S.C. How he discovered the company name is a story in itself.

“It was a descriptor of what happens when you try the sauce,” he said. “I was driving ladies to a function in Spartanburg, and they were talking about the salsa, and one of the ladies said it made her butt pucker.”

Peppers make up the bulk of his operation, and many rival the hottest peppers in the world, even beating the famed Ghost Pepper in Scoville units.

“Ghost peppers are by far not the hottest peppers,” he said. “There are literally dozens that are hotter, outside of my own.”

His peppers are processed into a variety of products. They’re also sold fresh, freeze-dried, ground and pureed. He packages his own peppers, but relies on Westerville, Ohio-based CaJohns Fiery Foods for the salsa. But peppers are not his only commodity. His 29 acres also grow onions, tomatoes, garlic, herbs and spices. All are grown organically in a combination of irrigated fields and greenhouses. He isn’t currently using hydroponics technology, but is considering it for future operations, he said.

“I do it all organic. There is nothing you can do naturally that chemicals will replace,” he said.

Many of his plants are grown under greenhouses, which allow him to maximize his production by fine-tuning the microclimate for each crop and variety. He is also looking at high tunnels as a possible production method.

“We’re trying to do 15,800 linear feet under high tunnels,” he said. “Last year, we were able to keep many different conditions and 1,400 different plants alive all winter and producing this year, from greenhouse technology.”

The greenhouses are the most important aspect of his operation, and are the breeding ground for new pepper varieties. Scientists from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., collaborate with him to breed specific traits into those new varieties.

The breeding techniques all came “naturally” to him, from traditional cultures that already cultivated high levels of peppers.

“I went to a local Vietnamese restaurant and asked them if they had any fresh peppers, and they gave me a plant, and that’s how it got started,” he said. “(We do the) same things people have done in the sub-Asian continent for thousands of years for breeding peppers, mostly cross pollinating and selection.”

He also grafts plants together to find a total of nine specific traits, he said, including color, pod shape and taste, as well as higher capsaicin content. The seeds are grown in his greenhouses to increase each generation.

The scientists assist in a variety of ways, including Scoville and soil research and testing each new strain to determine if it’s a new cultivar.

“Three may be the same pepper,” he said. “If it’s a different pod shape, but the same DNA, then I’m not going to call it a new cultivar.”

The result of his research is 19 new varieties, including what has been recently rated as the hottest pepper in the world, Smokin’ Ed’s Carolina Reaper, at 1.474 million units.

He also sells the seeds to share his new cultivars with customers, both through his farm and through the private label of a local seller named Pepper Joes. Like his breeding operation, the seeds are extracted through natural means. The pods are sun-dried, then cut open to remove the seeds from the internal membrane.

“I like to let them sun dry – it produces a better seed, and that is why we have a high germination rate,” he said. “It allows us to generate revenue and offset the cost of what we’re doing, and to share the peppers with everyone else.”

He has filed for LLC status, and hopes to expand soon to 120 acres – which will give him ample space to take pepper cultivars in new directions.

But a new record isn’t why he grows peppers. It is really nature, and improving human health in the process, that drives his research.

“I believe whole foods in general are the cancer fighters, and I believe the capsaicin is the cancer-fighting property, so I’m just trying to raise that cancer-fighting property,” he said. “I believe it’s all a gift from God. I was given a gift for plants.”

By Everett Brazil III, VGN Correspondent




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