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Tall vs. Bushy

Tall Or Bushy

  • Tall

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Bushy

    Votes: 23 100.0%
  • Total voters
    23
K

Kite09

So in everyone's opinion what is the best yielding pepper plant? A bushy one or a tall one? And if bushy is the answer can someone explain to me how to get a plant to grow more bushy?
 
They grow bushier when they're under strong light and get strong air on them from time to time in the seedling stage. Grown under weaker light and with less air movement they grow taller and lankier and stretch towards the light. Outside, I don't think there is much you can do outside of topping which could slow their growth so it may not be advisable anyway. If your seedlings start out lanky you can bury them deep when you transplant them too.

A lot of it depends on genetics and species though. Chinenses are naturally more bushy than annums or frutescens.
 
A bushier plant will grow more pods. I personally just let my plants go and the send off side shoots down low and get bushy all by themselves.
 
I have a plant that reached 10 feet tall last season. It was a 1st year plant. I was awestruck and simply curious so I let it go. The plant produced maybe 20 pods. Which is the norm for the plant according to my info. I have cut it back to around 6 feet and hope to force it into a bush tree and more production. I have always believed that a bushier plant with a protective canopy of leaves will gather more energy and provide protection and therefore produce more pods.

Mike
 
Mine are extra bushy so far this year and I think it has something to do with growing them in my frigid basement. That and keeping the lights about an inch from them. Ever since I removed the heat mats, they have grown slow and dense.
 
tall and leggy plant has less nodes for the flowers to be produced. A bushy plant has many nodes from where the flowers are produced. :) so more pods!
 
People always seem to talk about how tall their plants are but height can be a bad thing in my opinion, especially if there is long distance between nodes. I usually like to have stronger, shorter, bushier plants that don't get banged around and easily knocked over in the wind.
If you want taller plants, plant close together. For bushier plants, space plants out so the sun hits the whole plant without bottoms being shaded
 
I never pinch tops anymore. I find it eventually leads to more branches and bushier but they're more sprawling and need more support and for me branches always end up breaking off.
 
I used my Phototron this year to germinate my seeds since I didn't have space in the garage like I did last year and wow what a difference it's making so far. Since 95% of the light comes from the sides of the unit in 3 "U" shaped tubes the plants are being forced to grow out and not up. The plants have a very thick stalk for only being a few weeks old and the leave are also very wide and thick and have several layers of leaves.

I think I'm going to germinate all my seeds this way from now on. The only problem is I'll have to make some type of section so I can get 2 levels of plants instead of just one.
 
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