peppamang said:
I may be talking out of my ass here, but I think a lot of the pressure to buy P-K ferts advertised as "for blooming" is due to clever marketing, and a lot of crossover from the cannabis growing community and the pepper growing community. From everything that I understand about plants (not too much) flowering is more dependent on night temps, hours of sunlight, day temps, humidity, and biological changes within the plant. To me, it doesn't make sense that phosphorous or potassium would change whether the plant would flower and set fruit or not - they aren't hormones and they aren't commonly deficient elements in soils.
I don't know that nitrogen, at least from an organic source, can actually prevent a plant from flowering. Of course, if someone uses inorganics they could be burning the roots badly enough from salt build up that the plant is borderline dying but that is a bigger problem than flower drop.
It isn't very often that soil is deficient enough in phosphorous that it's even needed.
If certain plants are being very finnicky about setting pods, I'll move them into a shaded area and sometimes that helps with the issue.
I think it's more important to worry about pH, water schedule and amount of sun rather than PK (unless you see an obvious deficiency)
Your plants are in the same bed, right? It could even just be variation by variety. A lot of my plants are podding and flowering, but my P. Dreadies and Bonnets aren't and they're in the same mix as everything else. I chalk it up to nature being weird and I move on, plus I know I've got plenty of time in the season for these plants to set a few peppers.
For the sake of this discussion, yes, the plants are in the same bed. Same soil, same source, same basic care schedule, a couple different varieties. One end of the bed gets ever-so-slightly less sun than the other; the bed is basically full-sun but the one end is close to a fig tree that casts a shadow on the tail-end of the bed at the end of the day. I have been feeding with the Alaska Fish Stank in the water probably once a month or so; i've also given'm some Mag but not much. The soil is compost heavy, drains quite well, i've not used any Miracle-Gro or similar inorganic ferts. I've made at least a thousand mistakes, not the least of which is crowding my plants in a desperate maneuver.... oddly enough, there is more pod production on the more densely planted end of the bed.... but that also happens t be the slightly sunnier end, too, so perhaps that's a factor?
I kinda got the impression that the flowering ferts might be marketing, but I wasn't sure.... The Nitrogen thing, as I struggle to understand it, is that when there's a buttload of Nitrogen present, the plants shift their "focus" from flowering/fruit to more foliage b/c the abundant Nitrogen provides an opportunity for vigorous growth. I have absolutely no way of knowing if that's true, but i've seen it repeated enough that I believe it's a widely believed bit of "conventional wisdom." I've learned that, in general, conventional wisdom is often 100% true, but almost as often, it's just myth or superstition with just enough truth to serve as evidence...
Powelly said:
They flower based on their age
Yeah, i get that, in theory. But, I have the same varieties that are the same age in the same dirt under the same conditions, and some are flowering and some aren't. I guess it's like ppl and potty-training; some of us are good at it right away, others take longer, and some folks never learn it. I'm just thinking, if there are any tricks of the trade to coax some of the late-bloomers into setting pods, I'd love to use'm.
willard3 said:
Next year plant sooner: the best was to have fruit when you want it and before frost.
Oh, i've
definitely learned that lesson, believe me. Starting earlier, getting more organized, and limiting procrastination as much as possible, in 2018.
