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tutorial A Simple Guide to Topping and Pruning

I am still confused on which part of the plant to prune. I heard of people pruning sucker leaves. Here is a picture of my dragon cayenne. Are people pruning those little leaves forming inbetween the nodes?

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Sucker branches are on tomato plants, not peppers. As mentioned, they will form new branches! If you wanted to prune that particular plant, maybe just prune the leaves growing inwards to open up the divide between your two main branches.
 
These are some of my plant plants after topping
http://imgur.com/a/PjuXe
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I let my plants grow in starter cups almost a month then just put em pots waited about a month a half and topped it waited like three more week and topped each new branch I learned tho you should wait till you see lol pepper buds cause that means the plant is strong as you can get it befor you do it then wait and top each branch when it gets pepper buds starting this way you end up with strong braches I also did another experiment on the jalapeño if you top it let it grow out then top it again when it y's out it start grow buds instantly from the nodes below peppers are amazing plants can't wait to start trying to stress some peppers for the first time I heard they get really hot if you stop giving it water as much when it has chiles growing on it
 
CraigJS said:
What about topping or pruning after pods are/have developed ? Helpful or harmful ?
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I normally do a light prune after heavy waves of ripe pods if the plant doesn't have a lot of flowers.  Making the plant push out of new nodes gives it the opportunity to keep blooming, it may or may not have much impact.  It all depends on the length of your grow season I guess (which for me has been in Virginia)
 
I do very heavy prunings on overwinters after podding and they do fine ;)
 
Helvete said:
I normally do a light prune after heavy waves of ripe pods if the plant doesn't have a lot of flowers.  Making the plant push out of new nodes gives it the opportunity to keep blooming, it may or may not have much impact.  It all depends on the length of your grow season I guess (which for me has been in Virginia)
 
I do very heavy prunings on overwinters after podding and they do fine ;)
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So the average first frost date here is October 15th.  Would it make any sense to top now?
 
Thank you
 
Jabski said:
So the average first frost date here is October 15th.  Would it make any sense to top now?
 
Thank you
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Sure, maybe not get crazy with it but a tactical pruning/topping will probably allow you to have more pods by October, sometimes the age of the plant makes a big difference too.  Topping a first year plant might be detrimental but it all depends.  Best thing to do is to experiment with it, prune a few and leave some others and see for yourself.
 
Have you ever done an actual side by side comparison of actual fruit harvested by weight?  I know alot of people like to prune and top their plants but I can't see any reason for it.  Chili plants tend to be bushy by nature.  I never top or prune (except when the massively over weighted branches are pulling my plants down into my paths)  Your'e really slowing down the progress of the plant for what i have yet to see as a noticable if any gain in actual fruit produced.  In all my research I've only found one actual study done and it was on pruning for commercial greenhouse trellising "V trellis vs Spanish".  http://horttech.ashspublications.org/content/14/4/507.full.pdf It really only talks about increasing  "marketable yields" meaning ones that look nice or ship well and it's bell peppers.  I actually was just talking about blossom end rot and now that Im thinking about it over pruneing could be a cause.  The main stem of a plant is like a highway which shuttles water and nutrients to the different off shoots of the network and eventually to the rest of the plant.  Youd get to work much faster and efficiently if you only had one big road to take instead of a hundreds of side streets.  So diverting the flow of calcium carrying water over and over could mean more in the stems and less in the fruit. Trees are pruned but for the health and vigor of the tree over years and those with a central leader produce the most fruit, but with an annual like a chilli it just dosent seem to make sense. But again if youve ever conducted any actual experiments Id love to hear about it.
 
Jamison said:
IMO large leaves do nothing besides shade light. Granted their taking in photosynthesis, but also shading what photosynthesis could happen if that makes sense. I don't think ripping length wise would be a great idea. Might just end up killing that leaf anyways. Once a leaf is "hurt" the plant will just start sucking good nutrients trying to fix that leaf which will never happen. I like to remove all big leaves, as I notice leaves trying to come out of the node.
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this doesn't really make sense.  all leaves produce energy and nutrients for the plant and when a leaf is using more energy than its producing it will drop it.  nature doesn't waste energy. also it has recently been discovered that plants grow their leaves in the most efficient patterns so all leaves get sufficient light.
 
My opinions on pruning:
 
-  Pruning can/will cause a shock/set-back of a week or two, but will have much more branch growth, leading to much more leaf growth, leading to much more root growth, leading to more fruit production. If a plant is pruned too often, it will incur more shock induced set backs, but pruning only once or twice early in the season can really be beneficial.
 
-  The big fan leaves are great engines moving the internal flow of the plants. The bigger the leaf, the more energy that is utilized by the sun. If they really were a problem with causing shade, then you are probably growing indoors, as the sun's position changes and the light would not only be directly on lower leaves at some point throughout the day, but the sun is so intense that it can penetrate the big leaves well enough. I would always leave them on unless growing indoors.
 
 
It is also important to be smart about pruning, if you go all Edward Scissor Hands on a plant, you may be doing more harm than good. My advice, practice and see what results.
 
But that's just my opinion/experience on pruning 
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Can you do this any time of year? I live in a climate where plants can't left outside over winter, and even when they are taken in they will wither and drop leaves around November before sprouting again in spring. I took mine in planning to do this, but we had a particularly warm/sunny winter and the leaves have not dropped naturally. Would pruning/topping be a good thing to do now at the end of January before starting to feed for flowering again the spring? The main plant I want to keep doesn't have many sprouts on the main stem so I'm worried about killing it.
 
Thanks to anyone who can give info!
 
The_Birdman said:
Can you do this any time of year? I live in a climate where plants can't left outside over winter, and even when they are taken in they will wither and drop leaves around November before sprouting again in spring. I took mine in planning to do this, but we had a particularly warm/sunny winter and the leaves have not dropped naturally. Would pruning/topping be a good thing to do now at the end of January before starting to feed for flowering again the spring? The main plant I want to keep doesn't have many sprouts on the main stem so I'm worried about killing it.
 
Thanks to anyone who can give info!
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UPDATE: I just did it, and are definitely OK 24hrs later, so glad to have chopped all those Aphids!
 
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