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Bhut Jolokia Pruning Experiment

When I was hardening off my plants this past spring I noticed that the bottom leaves of my two bhut jolokia plants were becoming damaged from the hardening off process. Although they were still attached to the plants, the leaves were turning and badly browned. When I read through the forum and asked people for advice there was no general agreement on whether to cut the leaves back. Some feel it is better to leave the plants alone and let nature take its course, while others believe that it is better to prune it so the plant can grow new sets of more functional leaves.

I decided this was a perfect opportunity to conduct a little experiment. I cut the damaged bottom leaves off of one of the plants and left the other alone. Both plants received the same amount of water and compost tea at the same times, and both experienced the same growing environment from seed sowing to now. The only difference was that the plant whose leaves I did not cut back was about 2 inches taller when the pruning was done.

I found the dramatic differences in the results fascinating, and I am sharing them here because others may find them interesting as well.

The plant on the left is the one that was cut back, and it is currently sitting at 37 inches from ground level to the top of the tallest leaf. The one on the right is the one that was not cut back, and it is now sitting at 48.5 inches tall. I apologize for the edge of the tabasco pepper that entered into the picture on the far right, but I did not want to move any plants for purposes of taking pictures. I prefered to let everyone see them as they are and as they have been since going outside in the spring.
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This is the bhut that was pruned in the spring. It has way more folliage at the bottom of the plant (so much so that it is actually hard to water), but it is now about a foot shorter than the other plant. You can see loads of pods, but more on that later.
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The plant that was not pruned grew way taller, but you may notice already that there are fewer pods. The folliage is also more spread out, and there is definitely less on the bottom part of the plant.
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Although the plant that was not clipped is much taller it only has three pods right now. Assuming some of these flowers take it will pod up soon.
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The bhut that was clipped has somewhere between 22-26 pods right now (I get a different number every time I try to count them). This number is growing by two or three a day. All of the pods are in a ring around the center part of the plant.
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Gratuitous pod porn shot.
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So basically what I found was that the plant that was cut back in the spring grew more folliage at the bottom of the plant, was shorter, and produced far more pods in the early part of summer. The plant that was not cut back grew taller, had a more even distribution of folliage, but was behind in terms of podding up.

Just a last note, the positioning of the plants probably did not matter much. The bhut that was not cut back was in the middle of the other bhut and a tabasco plant and a kung pao plant even further to the right. The plants on either side all podded up very well, while the bhut that had been cut back has not produced many pods yet. I found this really strange because all of the plants flowered up at the same time, but the taller bhut dropped most of them.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the results of my little experiment.
 
Science! From the pics I can't tell if there are more lower leaves on the pruned plant, but they definitely look much larger. The pod difference is amazing, definitely interested to know if the un-pruned plant catches up later.
 
thats awesome stuff man mine was left unpruned and im only looking at 6 pods total on mine. sry to ask but whats the weather like there? and how often do you water and fert?
 
thats awesome stuff man mine was left unpruned and im only looking at 6 pods total on mine. sry to ask but whats the weather like there? and how often do you water and fert?

I'm in Ottawa up in Canada, so our growing season is short. At the moment it is very hot, but that does not last for too terribly long. The amount I water depends on the weather. It has been blazing hot here the past week, which meant at least once a day with a second sprinkling of water to dampen the mulch cover on a lot of those days. Normally I don't water that much though. You can tell whether or not they need more based on signs the plants give you, like leaves drooping and things like that.

I started off alternating between using a store bought organic fish fertilizer one week and a foliar spray the other, but after joining this forum and reading what other people are doing I took the plunge and make my own vermicompost tea. I plan on using that twice a season in place of all of the other stuff. The plants are doing at least as well this way, if not better.
 
From the pics I can't tell if there are more lower leaves on the pruned plant, but they definitely look much larger.

The pruned plant has many more leaves and they are definitely larger. Both plants have also branched out the side near the base of the plant, but the leaves on the one that was not pruned are more sparse across the branching even though the side branches are almost exactly the same side. You may be able to see this in the first photo, but if not I can add another picture that provides a closer look.
 
dont know if plant react like trees but if you prune a apple tree before winter or early in the season it stimulate the grown and new buds.
probably that it's a but the same with peppers.... the plant receive a shock and react by giving more flowers to create more seed to multiply if it is to die...
just like a "survival" reaction... dunno...

well nice topic!
 
the plant receive a shock and react by giving more flowers to create more seed to multiply if it is to die...just like a "survival" reaction.

Yes, I think that may be the case. The one that was not trimmed put its energy into vertical growth, while the one that was trimmed put its energy into pods. The only thing that does not make total sense to me with this theory is that the one that was trimmed clearly put a lot of its energy into growing leaves, because it grew way more leaves that were bigger than the other plant.
 
Yes, I think that may be the case. The one that was not trimmed put its energy into vertical growth, while the one that was trimmed put its energy into pods. The only thing that does not make total sense to me with this theory is that the one that was trimmed clearly put a lot of its energy into growing leaves, because it grew way more leaves that were bigger than the other plant.

It does take energy to make flowers/pods. Maybe more than vertical growth? Perhaps it put out more leaves to generate more photosynthesis?
 
So you just took off the bottom leaves only and did nothing with the tops of the plants? Hmmm....giving this one a go this year after overwintering.

Thanks for the pod porn....and good looking plants.
 
Just remember that even if the plants had exactly the same conditions beside the pruning the probably still have different genetics. You cant get to a clear mechanism without repeats that shows the same results. The idea of this working this way may be nice but to be sure we need more data and this to be done on more than 2 plants.

On a side note still great job and great pepper plants!
 
Just remember that even if the plants had exactly the same conditions beside the pruning the probably still have different genetics. You cant get to a clear mechanism without repeats that shows the same results. The idea of this working this way may be nice but to be sure we need more data and this to be done on more than 2 plants.


Absolutely, a low n is one of the limitations of experiments. But I don't have hundreds of the same type of plant to do proper trials, so it is what it is. As you point out, ideally others will try the same thing and show how the results are the same or different. The reason I thought it was worth posting and showing is that the results were so dramatic, which makes me think that other people would likely get similar results. In any event, your point is absolutely correct in all respects.
 
July 18th Update

It is now 11 days after I posted the first set of pictures shown above. Quite a bit had changed over that time, and since a picture is worth a thousand words I'll get straight to the photos.

The side by side comparison looks simlar, but the two plants have both grown in the past week and a half. The one of was pruned (shorter one on the left) grew 2 inches and is now 3'2 from the ground to the top leaf. The plant that was not pruned (larger one on right) grew a whopping 4 inches and now stands 4'4. I know the larger plant is way wider than before as well because I was forced to move the pots around it when the branches started to sprawl out, but I can't give an exact amount wider because I did not take an initial measurement.
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The larger plant now has just over 20 pods (can't be exact because every time counting produces a different number), which is about what the other bhut had 11 days ago. The different is that the pods are far more spread out across the plant, and some of them are on the branches shooting off to the sides.
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The smaller bhut, which was the one that had the bottom leaves trimmed in the spring, has approximately 60 pods. Because the pods are so densely packed it is impossible to get a good count. The pods are also still mainly found in a ring in the middle part of the plant, although a few a starting to pop up on the branches growing outwards from the sides.
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When you look at the smaller plant from the side you can see how the dense ring of pods continues all the way around the plant. I was pretty much sitting in my cucumbers to get this shot.
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To sum up, over the past 11 days the plant that was trimmed only grew half as much as the bhut that was left alone this past spring (2 inch growth versus 4 inch growth). The larger bhut that had not been trimmed also grew substantially in diameter, forcing me to move the neighbouring plants away about a foot each. However, the plant that was trimmed added about twice as many new pods in this same amount of time. The larger bhut had pods spread out all over the plant, including the branches growing outwards, while the smaller one that had been trimmed in the spring has a densely packed collection of bhuts found mainly in a ring in the middle of the plant.
 
Great Stuff.

It seems to me the pruned plant would be shorter just because it was, and is, in bloom / fruit stage longer and is putting more energy into that instead of growing taller / wider.
Neat experiment.
 
A wise man once said "more nodes = more pods". Pruning gets you more nodes eventually, the trade off being slower vertical growth.

I used to trim pretty aggressively, but I have found a way to automate the lower branching. Too bad I lost so many to BER this year.

You plants look great by the way, awesome job, and great post!
 
It seems to me the pruned plant would be shorter just because it was, and is, in bloom / fruit stage longer and is putting more energy into that instead of growing taller / wider.
Neat experiment

Thank you very much!

A wise man once said "more nodes = more pods". Pruning gets you more nodes eventually, the trade off being slower vertical growth.

That seems to be the case with what I am seeing.

You plants look great by the way, awesome job, and great post!

Thank you very much! I was hoping that at least some people found what was happening as interesting as I do. :P
 
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