Johnny’s Receives All-American Selections National Awards For New Peppers

Johnny's receives two All-American Selections national awards recognizing its newest Corno di Toro pepper varieties.

Johnny’s receives two All-American Selections national awards recognizing its newest Corno di Toro pepper varieties.

Johnny’s Selected Seeds has received two All-American Selections (AAS) National Awards in recognition of its newest Corno di Toro pepper varieties. Johnny’s AAS-winning peppers are easy to grow under a wide range of conditions, mature early, and express a compact, upright growth habit, or “plant architecture” that keeps the fruits healthy and up off the ground.

Corno di Toro, or “bulls-horn” peppers, have become an important class for market growers, in large part thanks to Carmen. According to Emily Haga, plant breeder for Johnny’s, “Carmen is a sweet, red Italian frying pepper bred by Johnny’s that has an almost cult-like following among pepper growers and lovers. This year, Johnny’s Selected Seeds is expanding its selection in this important category, with AAS Winners Escamillo and Cornito Giallo.”

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The result of classical breeding by Johnny’s plant breeder Janika Eckert, these new varieties were years in the making. According to Eckert, this “involves a lot of good old-fashioned work,” hand-selecting the best plants from each successive generation to refine important traits and achieve uniformity.

Johnny’s newest corno di toro have flavor and performance that rival Carmen’s, but come in different sizes and colors – giving growers more choices and making it easier to pair complementary varieties that will create eye-catching displays at market and on the dinner plate. Escamillo is the broad-shouldered yellow partner to deep carmine Carmen. Cornito Giallo (yellow) and Cornito Rosso (red) are two smaller, half-size counterparts with the similar look, flavor, and maturity dates but in a dimension that is appealing for snacking or creating packaged mixes.

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All these varieties were bred by Janika Eckert on Johnny’s research farm in Albion, ME, to be early and productive in the field, and to have superior flavor that stands out in the kitchen. The exceptional sweetness of Johnny’s Corno di Toro makes them tremendously versatile and great-tasting any way you eat them – raw, cooked, sliced, diced, sautéed, stuffed, and fire-roasted.

 

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