whats the farthest into the season that you quit topping ? very curious especially my neighbors around illinois , and those with equal growing season . 
-
If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.
Whats the latest in the season to top plants ?
- Thread starter moruga welder
- Start date
Top my plants?! Pffft!
you don't top them my friend ?Hybrid Mode 01 said:
moruga welder said:
Nope. Not anymore at least. I used to buy into the "more branches - more pods" theory, but in reality I have yet to see any benefit to topping. In fact I have been having great luck with removing all growth below the plant's first fork. I've found that all the low branching encouraged by topping only leads to pods that grow on the ground (and get eaten by slugs), rainsplash and poor air circulation (both of which lead to foliar disease).
My plants have no lack of branches, they're all just 6-8" off the ground - where they are beyond the reach of slugs and where they dry out faster after rain or heavy dew.
o.k. SOLD !Hybrid Mode 01 said:
Nope. Not anymore at least. I used to buy into the "more branches - more pods" theory, but in reality I have yet to see any benefit to topping. In fact I have been having great luck with removing all growth below the plant's first fork. I've found that all the low branching encouraged by topping only leads to pods that grow on the ground (and get eaten by slugs), rainsplash and poor air circulation (both of which lead to foliar disease).
My plants have no lack of branches, they're all just 6-8" off the ground - where they are beyond the reach of slugs and where they dry out faster after rain or heavy dew.
I generally dont practice topping them unless there are extenuating circumstances that would benefit the plant in doing so. But to answer your question, topping can be preformed at any time if the plant is selected for OW. The important thing to consider though is the the main support growth is developed enough to support the intense canopy that can be produced from topping.
juanitos said:
Nah. Just the ones that deal with topping plants.
Last year I topped a lot of mine about a week or 2 after plantout. Not sure if it helped with total harvest but here is what I did notice. The non topped plants seemed to have 2 sets. Put on a set of pods about 20 - 40 earlier than the topped plants. Then once those were all ripe and picked they put on another much larger set of pods in the upper branches in numbers of about 60 -120. Those pods were not ripe until into october. The topped plants seemd to put on a much larger set of pods slowly through the summer. Picking of those was in septermber ish time frame. Once picked it was late and seemed to no put on any more pods. We are neighbors so not sure it matters so much for total output as much as when you want to harvest. If you don't top though that second set could be at risk of frost / freeze.
My wife dropped a cologne bottle (yup the seedlings were in my room.) off and landed on a 2 month old plant. It broke the plant completely leaving one node with 2 large leafs. Within 1 week, it took off with new growth.
This was very weird as I have topped plants in the past and they have sat around awhile before growing again.
This was very weird as I have topped plants in the past and they have sat around awhile before growing again.