A Swiss vegetable grower has done what he's already done twice before: broken the world record for the longest chili pepper. Jürg Wiesli's latest specimen, measured on Aug. 11 in the town of Dozwil, in the canton of Thurgau, came in at 52.5 centimeters — one foot, 8.6 inches — edging out his own previous mark by two centimeters and earning him his third Guinness World Record in the category.
Wiesli first claimed the title in 2017 with a 45-centimeter pod grown near St. Gallen, then stretched it to 50.5 centimeters the following year — a mark that stood for eight seasons. His newest pepper, longer than a kitchen rolling pin, grew from a personal strain he calls "Wiesli Big Long," bred over more than a decade from a variety of Cayenne pepper known as Joe's Long.
The process starts indoors each March, with seeds germinated at a steady 28 degrees Celsius before seedlings move outside in late April into compost-enriched soil. The tricky part, Wiesli told Guinness World Records, isn't length so much as straightness. "Long chillies tend to twist, and trying to straighten them out is almost impossible; they just snap off," he said.
I'm happy to have a world-record chilli once again after more than 10 years of breeding.
Jürg Wiesli, grower
The record adds Wiesli to a small club of hobbyist growers — alongside record-holders for heaviest pumpkin and longest cucumber — whose backyard obsessions land them in the record book most gardeners only read for reference. UPI reported the pepper drew a crowd of onlookers and local media at the official measurement in Dozwil, where adjudicators laid the pod flat and confirmed its length with a tape measure before certifying the entry.
Notably, the record is for length rather than heat — Wiesli's "Wiesli Big Long" strain is a mild Cayenne variety, not a contender in the separate, hotly contested race for the world's spiciest pepper. That distinction has not dented interest in his pods, which he says still find their way into home cooking once measuring season ends. Wiesli has already said he intends to keep saving seeds from his best performers each year, meaning a fourth record attempt could be only a summer away.
