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cloning About clones and years and viability and cares

Hi
 
Late last year I snipped a branch from an adult Chinense-of-some-variety plant that was then around 5-6 years. (It had not as far as I know produced any fruits, its living arrangements were okay for growing and then hanging on). Got the branch to grow rootlings and it's now a healthy-seeming plant in a 5L so called hempy bucket arrangement. Its grow tent has had 40-60% rh and ~23-26C these last months. It has on pH-6-water with 12,5ml floramicro and 15ml floramato (5l) developed a few flowers (tennish at a time at the very most) of the smaller and harder variety, relatively. One has started morphing into a fruit so far..not sure what it is yet, small, green and not elongated right now.
 
This is in contrast with its neighbour, a Habanada in the same tent with the same feed but in a 10L bucket. This habanada plant is going a bit bananas with the flowering, some are falling off but many are turning into pale green fruit shapes. Rather large, floppy flowers. This plant is significantly larger but the plants were "growing up" around the same time.
 
I see the following list of possible reasons for this contrast:
 
  • -If the motherplant was 6 years when the cutting was produced from it, does this mean my clone is on its 7th year, and 'old'? (How old do these things get, is logically the preceding question)
  • -5L is not enough, a superhot (it is very likely a superhot) needs more toe room
  • -It's too dry/cold, superhots need the equator
 
 
The first time around, detailed in my first glog, I had two superhot chinense plants going in the same tent under much the same conditions..both in 10L  buckets. The 7 pot brain strain produced perhaps 15 fruits all in all whereas the bhut jolokia output maybe 35 (they grew too large an unwieldy with the HID and that root volume so I axed them during the summer). Am thinking whatever I'm growing now is leaning more towards 7-pot.
 
Edit. In the twin tent there's a piri-piri plant (annuum) in the same kind of bucket as this unknown chinense and it is now starting to produce pods from its first ten or so flowers, it grew up a couple of months after the chinense.
 
 
Different plants have different growing characteristics.

Some are dwarf, some are leggy, some grow a wide canopy.

Some throw copious amounts of pods while others may produce just a handful.

Let nature do its thing, and enjoy the journey.

:cheers:
 
Your clone is fine.  There are all manner of commercial plants that are F1 hybrids that come from either clones, or tissue culture, of plants that are decades old, and yet they have the vigor of any young plant.
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This can happen.  You didn't really give much info about the parent plant, but if the parent didn't produce a bounty, you certainly shouldn't expect its clone to.
 
Thanks for your replies. I'll try and fix a photo within a few days. If I interpret correctly no parameter that I mentioned is necessarily in the orange zone.
 
The mother plant didn't produce at all but that's primarily because it wasn't given the right conditions, in that the relative humidity where it is at is seldom very high, rather the opposite, and in my limited experience chinense need humidity to thrive. It might not "thrive" in the sense of producing a lot even with acceptable conditions, of course, and it makes sense that a clone would act the same.
 
A plant from a seed of the one fruit said clone produced might be different in that sense, or so I' hoping. First things first though - ascertain what this plant is : )
 
Your experience is not correct.  Chinense can thrive in relatively low humidity.  In fact, humidity is just one factor.  You can play with combinations of factors to arrive at some version of "optimal".  I seriously doubt that this plant isn't producing due to low humidity. 
 
I start my plants albeit from seed in dec.

Humidity is around 15%, yet I always have pods, some even already ripe struggling to get to 30% humidity.

Good info solid

:cheers:
 
Masher said:
I start my plants albeit from seed in dec.

Humidity is around 15%, yet I always have pods, some even already ripe struggling to get to 30% humidity.

Good info solid

:cheers:
 
We have growers on this forum in places like Israel, South Africa, and Arizona, who live in almost arid climates, yet get good yields off Chinense plants.  So we know that this isn't the limiting factor.
 
solid7 said:
This can happen.  You didn't really give much info about the parent plant, but if the parent didn't produce a bounty, you certainly shouldn't expect its clone to.
I think this is really the heart of the matter, and being that all we really know about this clone is as follows:
chelicerae said:
... (It had not as far as I know produced any fruits, its living arrangements were okay for growing and then hanging on)...
 
..I think it's fair to expect very low production from this clone
 
Hmm
 
With all due respect Solid, "your experience is not correct" - well, how do you learn gardening? By only reading what people write on forums, never by doing?
 
Most guides I read before starting my first grow (in a glog here) mentioned humidity as an important factor, especially for chinense. This rhymed with my dropped-flower-experience and then employing a humidifier. If other people, in other locations or not, manage to get chinense peppers at 15% relative humidity then that factor alone may not have the weight I was ascribing it. (Well temps matter too, and dew point, 15%rh at 30C might be better than 15% rh at 21C, I don't know)
 
This particular individual might not be a heavy producer, true.
 
".I think it's fair to expect very low production from this clone" well, in hindsight I agree that more information about the motherplant is needed before one can draw a similar conclusion. This thread was never meant to be about the motherplant but of course it being a clone..
 
"Different plants have different characteristics" was a good reminder too.
 
What I'll take away from this thread and my prior is that I'll think rather hard before making a thread in this part of the forum.
 
chelicerae said:
With all due respect Solid, "your experience is not correct" - well, how do you learn gardening? By only reading what people write on forums, never by doing?
 
What I'll take away from this thread and my prior is that I'll think rather hard before making a thread in this part of the forum.
 
You learn in gardening by comparing your own experiences, with those of others, and then, if need be, repeating experiments, until you see the patten emerge that confirms or denies your hypothesis.  I'm sorry if that answer is not one-dimensional enough to appease you.
 
 
I've had a similar experience with two hydro plants I'm growing inside... both in the same closet under the same conditions. One is a Purple UFO and the other a Peter Pepper. The purple UFO has ~70 peppers on it right now and I've already harvested 7 or 8 ripe ones. The Peter Pepper has yet to set a single fruit. I've given up on it and started a Sugar Rush Peach to take it's place as it's been almost 5 months and I've run out of ideas to try. I'll add that my two peter peppers outside were among the last to fruit as well, but have been fruiting for a few weeks now while the one inside has yet to set a single pod. 
 
shotgunman006 said:
Hitting mine with a blossom booster fertilizer helped compared to a 20-20-20 or similar fertilizer i had been using b/c it claimed to be suitable for peppers. Mine are cayenne and tabasco mostly with some Chocolate bhutlah's, apocalyse scorpion and bleeding borg.
 
I used this one on amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JDRWFF4/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1 but Lowes and Walmart sell some blossom boosters.
 
Did you ever try running a grow side by side with your normal fert, vs your "bloom boosted" plant?  How many years did you grow before trying the bloom?  Do you always use the same main fert?
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I grew no less than 3 years, using the conventional nutrient cycling advice, before I tried using the same nutrient for the entire grow.  I even did side-by-side grows, with single nutrient, vs "bloom" stage nutrients.
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I got more output with the "non-bloom" plants.  In every single case.
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Still got a crap ton of "bloom" and "veg" nutes I'm trying to pawn off on anyone who will take them.
 
solid7 said:
 
Did you ever try running a grow side by side with your normal fert, vs your "bloom boosted" plant?  How many years did you grow before trying the bloom?  Do you always use the same main fert?
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I grew no less than 3 years, using the conventional nutrient cycling advice, before I tried using the same nutrient for the entire grow.  I even did side-by-side grows, with single nutrient, vs "bloom" stage nutrients.
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I got more output with the "non-bloom" plants.  In every single case.
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Still got a crap ton of "bloom" and "veg" nutes I'm trying to pawn off on anyone who will take them.
Well i do it more for a hobby. I only have about 100 growing so no i haven't spent a bunch of effort doing my own research (who has that kind of time on their hands? I can barely water them all). But when i had plants side by side (in seperate pots) and some were not putting out, the Blossom booster seemed to help. Its a really cheap thing to try for our friend who started this thread and they will probably know in a few weeks or less if it had the desired effect. If not, they can do something else-like give up and grow a different pepper.
 
solid7 said:
My hobby, too.  As well as being a fertilizer industry contrarian. :D
 
So what is your expert opinion on fertilizer ratios for plants in cups about to be transferred to 2 gallon pots? Some are probably bigger than they should be to be in that size cup (4 inch cups and plants are probably 18-24 inches tall) so i have been trying to fertilize them with some standard fertilizer until i can transplant them (prob 20-20-20 miracle grow) .I have been topping them trying to get them to bush out and thicken the stem a bit. they are mostly tobasco and cayenne varities. The Chocolate bhutlahs are almost all in pots and are doing pretty good. some are starting to flower.
 
I will sound like a broken record to everyone on this forum...  But the 2 best fertilizers that I have personally found are, CNS17 grow - which I use all year round, and Alaska Fish 5-1-1.  (I have consistently had better results with Alaska than its more expensive Neptune counterpart - and it also has better shelf life)
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If you're going to stick with a straight inorganic fertilizer, I'd probably go with some sort of Osmocote product. This isn't really my bag, but I'm not one to impede progress with my ideology.  This would be a great choice for an all-season fertilizer:
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https://www.amazon.com/18-6-12-Controlled-Release-Fertilizer-Osmocote/dp/B01IFMPT5A/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=southern+ag+osmocote&qid=1563470082&s=gateway&sr=8-4
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It's a little pricey, but it's potent.  A little goes a very long way.
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You can even supplement it every couple of weeks with either of the liquid ferts that I recommended above.  In fact, I highly encourage growers with no reservations about fertilizer type, to use a 2 tier feeding strategy.  One organic, one inorganic.
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Thick stems, bushiness, etc, are based on environmental factors.  Don't expect the thickest, bushiest plants at this time a year, in a hot, humid climate.  Plants will eschew girth, bushiness, and leaf size, in favor of smaller and more delicate features, which will aid in transpiration of oxygen.  The plant will grow according to whatever its needs are, based on its environment.  You won't be able to force it with nutrients.  But it's the reason why plants grown in cooler environments or indoors, look so much better than what we end up with here in the southeast.
 
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