Scoring around 348,643 on the Scoville heat scale, the Tiger Paw pepper is among the world’s hotter peppers, being one of the spiciest habanero peppers ever developed. The Scoville scale measures a pepper’s heat by their content of capsaicin; an element that’s responsible for making a burning sensation on someone’s tongue.
Origins
The Tiger Paw is a habanero pepper that was developed by a vegetable laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina, by a geneticist named Richard Fery and a plant pathologist named Judy Thies, two scientists at the ARS. This habanero pepper got its name “Tiger Paw” when a fellow scientist of Fery and Thies saw the pepper said it resembled a tiger’s paw. Yeah, not too exciting, but Thies has stated that “Not only is it among the spiciest ever developed at ARS, it’s also highly resistant to many important species of root-knot nematodes.”
Uses
Besides being a scorching out pepper, Tiger Paw showcases nematode-resisting abilities. Nematodes are microscopic worms that are soilborne, and a major problem for habanero peppers and many other crops worldwide. Fery stated that “All habanero-type cultivars currently available to commercial growers and home gardeners are susceptible to nematodes” However, Tiger Paw has shown the ability to fend off the southern root-knot nematode, the peanut-knot nematode, the tropical root-knot nematode, and had 97% fewer nematode eggs on every gram of fresh root than another type of habanero pepper in greenhouse tests; where the Tiger Paw habanero pepper has went through three years of testing before being released for public consumption.
Cultivation
It’s been exceptionally difficult to find any cultivation information or even where to find seeds for this pepper. I’ll have it updated as soon as I find more info.
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