To Prune or Not to Prune.. DONE! (thanks folks!)

Go ahead with pruning?

  • Total voters
    11
Super Hots Canada

Super Hots Canada

Hey folks,
 
As mentioned in other topics I have posted on (i.e. my glog), my Naga's are flowering, but not yet producing. And at this point they're getting pretty top-heavy, rather than filling out up the length of their stems.
 
On the top they're really stretching out and the leaves are having more & more space between them. Not only is this eating up a lot of space, but it's also making it difficult to reach the flowers, etc.
 
The final decision if obviously mine, but I would like some feedback from those with more experience on this front..
 
1. Do I go ahead and prune them down?
- If I do, I intend to prop them up closer to the light so that they hopefully fill out better along the stems, rather than focusing on stretching upwards.
 
2. If I do prune them, where might be the best cut-off point?
- I'm leaning towards thinking that it might be best to lob off the top, leaving some of the top branches (snipped to a certain length) and just snipping off the leaves off those top branches.
 
 
The picture below shows around 6 of my Naga Jolokia's.. I have around 12-14 (others are filling out better):
 
naga-jolokia.jpg
 
are you growing strictly indoors or moving outside when season arrives?
 
if staying indoors i would just let them flower and do their thing.
 
if moving outdoors during season i would do a drastic prune which would give you more nodes/possible blooms when they do make it outside. i am guessing you still have 4-5 months before your grow season is warm enough?
 
I don't tend to prune, but do under certain circumstances. On the other hand, others regularly prune, typically "topping" (reducing height.) The purpose of topping is to force the plant to create additional nodes (places where the branches split) because peppers generally only produce pods at the nodes. In other words, more nodes generally equals more pods.
 
I have more than enough pods for my purposes without topping, which is why I generally don't do it. However, if I have a plant that is clearly not branching out at all, then I will top. And yes, keeping the plants physically closer to the lights usually helps cause them to spread outwards instead of upwards.
 
I prune all mine as they grow, right at the fork. I pruned 1/2 my crop one year & left the other 1/2 to grow normal, the normal produced peppers ALOT sooner & quicker, but the pruned ones out produced the non-pruned at least 2-1 in the whole season. 
 
brownb4 said:
are you growing strictly indoors or moving outside when season arrives?
 
if staying indoors i would just let them flower and do their thing.
 
if moving outdoors during season i would do a drastic prune which would give you more nodes/possible blooms when they do make it outside. i am guessing you still have 4-5 months before your grow season is warm enough?
Click to expand...
 
Strictly indoors. But I would prefer to get more "bang for my buck" - especially since I am attempting to get a business going. I feel like them being top-heavy, as they are, then they aren't making the most of the space I have for them (which is quite limited).
 
Another issue, right now, is the aphids are starting to spread again and it's getting tough to spot them :(
 
 
geeme said:
I don't tend to prune, but do under certain circumstances. On the other hand, others regularly prune, typically "topping" (reducing height.) The purpose of topping is to force the plant to create additional nodes (places where the branches split) because peppers generally only produce pods at the nodes. In other words, more nodes generally equals more pods.
 
Click to expand...
 
pogeys said:
I prune all mine as they grow, right at the fork. I pruned 1/2 my crop one year & left the other 1/2 to grow normal, the normal produced peppers ALOT sooner & quicker, but the pruned ones out produced the non-pruned at least 2-1 in the whole season. 
Click to expand...
 
More pods is certainly my goal.. the more, overall, the better. :)
 
Personally if they were over 1-2 ft and I had a couple months still to go inside i would definitely top/FIM them.
I don't really need the early pods (though they are nice) in march / april (my market doesn't open till mid may). Like you i would rather get the most efficient plants i can grow, when i need them.
 
About the height to cut them. I might leave the plant 1.5 ft ish tall, leaving at least 6 leaves and FIM the top. 
 
Indoors I'd just wait it out, they'll likely eventually send up branches from lower down if there is space and light to take advantage ofg and time is on your side. I might pot up a few of those in the pic though and put up some support to hold everything in one piece when they pod up. I noticed last year that when lower leaves dropped new shoots tended to spring out from the empty spot.
 
I think topping is primarily done early on to cause forks lower down on the plant, no?
 
My only experience pruning is with a very different plant, but I plan to top my peppers only if they're getting too big before the last frost..
 
Good luck with whatever you decide to do SHC!
 
AaronRiot said:
Indoors I'd just wait it out, they'll likely eventually send up branches from lower down if there is space and light to take advantage ofg and time is on your side. I might pot up a few of those in the pic though and put up some support to hold everything in one piece when they pod up. I noticed last year that when lower leaves dropped new shoots tended to spring out from the empty spot.
 
I think topping is primarily done early on to cause forks lower down on the plant, no?
 
My only experience pruning is with a very different plant, but I plan to top my peppers only if they're getting too big before the last frost..
 
Good luck with whatever you decide to do SHC!
Click to expand...
 
I was kinda hoping they would go that direction - sending up branches - but I've actually seen that the more they fill out on top, the more leaves drop from the bottom and nothing takes their place. The canopies seem to be overshadowing the stems to the point they just don't attempt to grow anymore.
 
A prime example is my tallest Habanero - it's nestled into a corner and a couple of the Naga's have canopied so quickly that the Habanero seems to be giving up on even putting out anymore flowers and is starting to be quite barren up the stem.
 
.. I guess I'm leaning towards pruning, just as the votes on the poll so far are.
 
Such as this?
 
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj3EZYcjyyI[/media]
 
.. That seems to be a bit along the lines of what I was thinking.. or a cross between that and topping. :)
 
Thanks for all the advice and feedback folks...  I took the plunge.
 
I pruned back the 5 Naga Jolokia plants that are currently in the largest planters and I built a counter/table to elevate them. I did a bit of a mix between topping (because they were far too tall) and using that "FIM" technique that Orcmie suggested. I attempted to make them all more or less around the same height.
 
I hope I didn't go too far..
 
naga-jolokia-fim.jpg
 
These are the 3 videos that got me to start pruning, and I was very skeptical at 1st, that's why I only did 1/2 the plants the first year, but now I do every single plant. The videos show the start, middle , & conclusion, shows the difference as he leaves 1 un-pruned
The last one didn't load, just click the link, great videos
 
Yeah, they really stretched. And I didn't want to completely lob off their tops, so I topped them to a more reasonably height and kinda loosely tried that "FIM" method. :)
 
Super Hots Canada said:
Yeah, they really stretched. And I didn't want to completely lob off their tops, so I topped them to a more reasonably height and kinda loosely tried that "FIM" method. :)
Click to expand...
heh i'm sure it will slow them down all the same, post update in a month!
 
The reason they are stretching is because of light issues (and possibly air movement or lack of) ... The long internodes indicate to me that a) you don't have enough light . b) the lights aren't close enough c) the light isn't penetrating to the bottom of the plants hence all growth concentrated at the tips/canopy and little branching or d) low air movement or e) all of the above
 
Trippa said:
The reason they are stretching is because of light issues (and possibly air movement or lack of) ... The long internodes indicate to me that a) you don't have enough light . b) the lights aren't close enough c) the light isn't penetrating to the bottom of the plants hence all growth concentrated at the tips/canopy and little branching or d) low air movement or e) all of the above
Click to expand...
 
Yup.. Probably a bit of each of those. For the longest time all I had was T8's. Most of my plants are much better situated now, so hopefully I'll see a lot more improvement over the next while. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top