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Leaning a pepper plant

C

ccernst

This year I had two jalapeno, a poblano, and a serano plant. One of the jalapeno and the poblano plants fell over because they got really tall and a big storm came through. This happened late spring. The plant started sprouting secondary stalks out the side. The jalapeno did well by producing pods off the secondary. The poblano was a mess and ended up just producing a lot of stalks (only 5 small pods). All plants in the garden use a compost soil, so should be lots of nutrients and room to grow.

Has anyone played with intentionally leaning them to get secondary stalks? I'm thinking about doing this for next year and using tomato cages to help support the plant.
 
Can't say I have tried it, but wouldn't that almost be like just having more plants close together?? I understand there will be only one root sytem, but in effect the plant would be more than one plant... Don't know I might be waaaaaaaay off the money here.

But I'd say just let them grow naturally, by forcing it to grow more stalks, you'll just end up delaying the fruit setting and possibly cause smaller fruit.


Jas
 
This is my first year growing, but I noticed a couple things. First one of my three jalapeno plants was not planted deep enough, it was blown over in a storm and then stepped on, by me of course, it produced a total of four peppers, I just noticed that it had roots sticking out of the soil lol. One of the others is about three feet high and growing perfectly and produced a secondary stalk on its own. It was very productive, but I have never leaned a plant on purpose.
 
If you want to incourage more branches or buds along the stem or stak of the plant, clip off some of the lower leaves. This will cause the axillary buds to begin to develope into new branches or stems.
 
If you grow your plant on an angle instead of straight up it trigers secondary stalks to produce. iv'e done it numerous times on purpose and it works great. I get more peppers. Much more
 
You're growing in the ground right? I've only done containers, but it seems like both soil and container growers get the best results by growing up. Maybe if the seeds were rare and old it would be good, but if not, planting more should give better results. Look around for a thread by Wayright, he grows monsters in the earth, and he grows them tall.
 
yep, all of this is going in the ground. I think if I did it on purpose, each stalk would get its own cheap-o tomato cage. I'll definitely have to do a leaner and a straight one of the same type.
 
Poblano on the right
Poblano_Right.jpg


Poblano on the left
Poblano_left.jpg


VBA Jalapeno
VBA_Jalapeno_stalks.jpg



Thought I'd post a bit of what happened on accident. The poblanos have a lot of extra stalks.
 
well, I know already that the poblanos were a failure. only the "left" plant is producing anything; 5 pods this year...just a few small pod starts, we'll see if they do anything. lots of flower starts on the "right", but no pods. both poblanos made real long stalks...probably around 3 feet long that just ran along the ground. Next year will be better.

The "VBA" jalapeno did great this year. had many good popper meals off of it.
 
On my larger over wintered plants I tie some of the stalks to the bottom of the plant so it's a wider plant instead of thin busy plant. This allows the overhead sun to hit more of the leaves since the plant is wider. I haven't noticed any additional stalks growing, but the plant is now 3' tall and 4' wide with pods growing from every stalk on the plant.
 
I've seen this with indeterminate tomatoes but not with peppers; think I'll try what madhatter said as I have some young sannam & dundicut that need transplanting and the stems seem soft enough to be able to angle without snapping, plus I have some young scotch bonnet seedlings and perhaps angling them will assist in enhanced new growth.
 
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