So I have several pepper plants roughly 1-1.5 tall. I plan on transplanting these in a few raised beds and pots in about 2 weeks. I've been picking flowers off of them for about 3 weeks now, but now several of them have more than 20-30 flowers on them. I honestly feel like they're too small to support all of that weight if I were to leave them to fruit, plus like I said, I plan on transplanting them. Would it be wise to pinch them all off? Would that be too stressful for the plants?
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SHOULD I "PINCH" THE FLOWERS
- Thread starter Beardedpepper
- Start date
pinch away ! 
Pinch them off. They may just drop once they're transplanted.
peppers can both grow and fruit simultaneously provided they have the everything they need..
If the plants not ready then they wont stick. If it is ready, and it has all the nutes it needs then it will continue to both fruit and grow without, IMO, slowing it down all that much.
I can post pictures of plants with 6+ pods at the very first node / fork and then the same for subsequent nodes after that. Would it have done all that much better if I had plucked them off? Doubt it.
If its too cold to fruit properly or the plant is unhealthy then in that situation you should pluck them off, as they wont stick/grow properly anyway so THAT is wasted energy.
Plant in below image has not been topped, and has had no flowers pinched. What more do you want?
Had i plucked the plant in below image then there would just be a big gap lower down with no peppers, and peppers would have formed on the newer nodes, as they have done anyway.
I vote to leave them be. I thought the goal is to actually grow peppers?
If the plants not ready then they wont stick. If it is ready, and it has all the nutes it needs then it will continue to both fruit and grow without, IMO, slowing it down all that much.
I can post pictures of plants with 6+ pods at the very first node / fork and then the same for subsequent nodes after that. Would it have done all that much better if I had plucked them off? Doubt it.
If its too cold to fruit properly or the plant is unhealthy then in that situation you should pluck them off, as they wont stick/grow properly anyway so THAT is wasted energy.
Plant in below image has not been topped, and has had no flowers pinched. What more do you want?
Had i plucked the plant in below image then there would just be a big gap lower down with no peppers, and peppers would have formed on the newer nodes, as they have done anyway.
I vote to leave them be. I thought the goal is to actually grow peppers?
I pinch. If everything else is taken care of pinching will make a larger plant with more fruiting sites that will translate to a larger harvest. May take a little longer for harvest but it will be larger. Cheers
nzchili said:
I used to believe in pinching off at the early stages - but I'm not really convinced, anymore. Maybe it helps at first, but by the end of the season, I don't ever seem to be able to tell the difference, as to which plant got pinched, and which didn't.
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If your plant doesn't have the resources to support the peppers, it will abort some.
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Usually, if I want maximum yield of some particular variety - and mind you, I'm not a commercial grower - I usually just plant more of it, and take moderate care of it. (rather than trying to optimize everything, and employ ninja level tricks)
For anyone wanting to see actual side by side comparison's of plants having the flowers removed vs not check out my glog from last year.
the plants I removed the flowers from for the first couple of weeks were much larger at the end of the year
the plants I removed the flowers from for the first couple of weeks were much larger at the end of the year
I like to pinch early flowers. I want my young plants to put more energy into growing roots and leaves. Doing so will make for a larger, more productive plant in the long run.
