Clipping Peppers

The idea - once a plant starts developing offshoots, cut the very top of it off, causing it tow sprout 2-3 new branches. Do the same with them. With tobacco, the extra growth goes into the leaves (all the suckers are removed as soon as they start). Basil will develop way more leaves.

The habs I grew this year seem to do this naturally - they are very bushy with all kinds of branches. Not so with the Hot Wax or Jalas - pretty much one stalk/branch. If topping/clipping works, it should increase the yield.

Has anyone tried it?

Clipping the top will make a bushier plant with more surface for light to penetrate but usually it won't be as strong and will need more support. I personally like the upright stature of a non-topped plant.

The yellow hab plant on the right (on the blue pot for height only) was topped and is bushy and falling, not supporting itself very well while the other 3 plants you see behind it are the same but not topped. The clipped plant was possibly a little more productive but branches ended up breaking and it had to be kept off the ground, a bit of a hassle. Check out the plant back left, its just loaded with peppers

I wonder.....I have the rare insight of viewing the branches individually(bear with me a moment). I have just cut back the single best plant I have ever had for overwintering.
I cut off almost all of the branches to dry, hoping that the remaining pods will ripen.

What struck me, and what may or may not pertain to this thread, was the fact that this plant had nodes which supported 4 peppers. There were spaces where I assure you that it had 30+ peppers in one cubic foot of space. It was stunning.
What I was shocked by, was that there were whole branches without a single pepper when I cut it apart. Were they just stripped because they had just been harvested? I don't think so. I did not harvest whole branches, I just picked the ripe ones here and there.
I think that some of those branches never had a pepper.
I guess that my point is that more branches may not equal more peppers.
The branches with no peppers were not "new growth", they were some of the biggest branches!
I mention this because, if someone had told me that one branch of that plant did not have a pepper, I would have laughed at them. But prolific as it was, some branches were not producing.

Potawie,

My hab plants looks nothing like the one of yours on the left - it's more like a gigantic (or at least huge) pumpkin. Extremely bushy, leaves all the way to the ground. I didn't clip or sucker any of them. The jala and Hungarian Wax look more like a telephone pole with a few branches - not bushy at all.