There's an irrefutable link between chili peppers and testosterone. It seems the hotter the chili becomes the greater the level of testosterone required to consume it.

It was never a rare occurrence during my school years to hear or witness the new boy being dared to bite into a jalapeno. Then the challengers would be marched into the Principal's office as the poor newbie was quickly dashed to the nurse's room, or hospital if it were really bad.

And that was just a jalapeno.

I can see you're already rolling your eyes imagining the excruciating heat emitted from one of these . But, when you compare a jalapeno to the recently recorded World's Hottest Chili, the 'Ghost Chili', its heat is more tepid than acute.

The heat of a chili pepper is measured in Scoville Units derived from the content of capsaicin found in the pepper. While the jalapeno is no small-fry measuring a respectable 2,500-10,000 units it is completely overshadowed by the bhut jolokia - "Ghost chili" at more than 1million Scoville units.

The jalapeno is not even in the same class.

So while most of us home gardeners will never get to grow the bhut jolokia, and most are happy not to, there are ways to make your chili plants produce hotter peppers.

1. Stressing your chili plant by denying it of its preferred watering requirements, or by overwatering the plant will ensure that the capsaicin levels increase.
2. Timing your chilies to mature in the hottest part of their growing season will also increase the pungency of the peppers. If the chilies ripen as the season begins to cool you aren't likely to enjoy their increased 'hot-ness'.
3. After the fruit has begun to set, deprive the plants of any more added nitrogen. Adding nitrogen will reduce the capsaicin levels but it will make them sweeter if that is your desired result.
4. Remove up to half of the flowers and fruits that begin to set. This will force the plant to put its effort into producing better quality peppers than relying on reproduction via quantity.

If you just plan to grow healthy chili peppers and aren't interested increasing the heat levels then make sure they're grown in well-drained soil, with mostly full-sun and continue to water as the plant shows signs of stress.