Plant · P-225

Aji Amarillo

Capsicum baccatum

Aji Amarillo is a Peruvian yellow-orange chili grown for large, medium-to-very-hot pods used fresh, dried and ground - the backbone of Peruvian cooking alongside rocoto pepper. Unlike most of the peppers in this group, it is a lowland tropical plant that genuinely likes a long hot summer, needing about four months from transplant to first ripe pod and bearing well into autumn where the frost-free season is long enough. It carries the same substantial medicinal record as rocoto - antirheumatic, digestive and a rubefacient, used internally for fever and weakness and externally for sprains and neuralgia. It also tolerates an unusually wide soil pH range, from strongly acidic to alkaline, so heavy clay is not the obstacle it is for many garden crops.