tutorial A Simple Guide to Topping and Pruning

ikeepfish said:
FIMed Poinsettia pepper, new growth in a week:
 
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EDIT: Going to add a 2 week picture on Friday, this thing is looking great
 
 
...this is a two week shot, I forgot I had taken it and never uploaded it.  I actually gave this particular plant to a friend, I'm going to see her this weekend and can get a one month shot of it :)
 
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Update!  My friend has been taking good care of this fella!  This is the same plant about 5 weeks from when it got topped:
 
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I'm new to this forum. Forgive any ignorance.  I have two Moruga scorpion pepper plants.  I planted one in a pot and the other in the ground in my garden. Both are doing very well and just now starting to flower. The plant in the garden has a few HUGE leaves at the bottom.  Should I remove these to help light penetrate the bottom of the stem?  Out of all my pepper plants, these are the last to begin fruit.  Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thanks!  
 
Cheers.
 
Pensive Crow said:
I'm new to this forum. Forgive any ignorance.  I have two Moruga scorpion pepper plants.  I planted one in a pot and the other in the ground in my garden. Both are doing very well and just now starting to flower. The plant in the garden has a few HUGE leaves at the bottom.  Should I remove these to help light penetrate the bottom of the stem?  Out of all my pepper plants, these are the last to begin fruit.  Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thanks!  
 
Cheers.
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I mostly prune big leaves at the bottom because I don't like them touching the dirt and it gives the lower nodes more room to bolt upward, this includes light penetration.  It's all about personal preference.
 
First post! I have about 20 types of peppers in the garden this year and I feel much better about topping thanks to this post. Thank you!!
 
So I didn't top any of my plants, and there was finally some form of invisible threshold patience took me past that yielded a TON of new growth from the bottom of my seemingly leggy plants.
 
JUST before I was considering topping them...this was a pretty typical pepper.
 
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Here's an example of how they've filled out since.
 
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Topped both a flowering thai (the flowers were in the topped top) and an adjuma after transplanting them to 10 liter pots and now there's so much growth.
It totally works like magnets.
 
Great article on topping and pruning.I have a question.Is it ok to top a plant after its first season?this year i grew several sadabahar plants and didnt top or prune them. Now waiting for fruit to ripen.they grew tall lanky when and where to top plant if at all possible.
 
mpicante said:
Great article on topping and pruning.I have a question.Is it ok to top a plant after its first season?this year i grew several sadabahar plants and didnt top or prune them. Now waiting for fruit to ripen.they grew tall lanky when and where to top plant if at all possible.
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It's fine to top them now but in all honesty I would just stake them up if they are that far along already.  
 
Right around the spring and autumn equinox (don't know a plural for that) are when my plants go into a "hibernation mode" when they just stop growing and just kinda linger until (I assume) they can notice a definite change in seasons. Lasts about a month. In Hawaii it's basically Long warmer day/Short cooler day seasons. That's when I prune back and scratch the top 2" or so of soil, put a new layer of compost on top and top dress with some 10-20-20 time release fertilizer. I have 1 bhut jolokia in the ground that is about 2.5 years old and 10 orange habanero's in 3 gallon pots that are 3 years old. Had 16 but some recently just got tired and so I pulled them. Gonna start a new batch in a couple weeks and will pot up to 5 or 7 gallons this time. I'll try to document this with pics.

mpicante said:
Do you think it would be ok to top them after harvest?if so where. Would i make the Cut?
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When I prune back, it's usually cutting the biggest branches to 1/2 their length and then going inside and clipping off any smaller shoots that look like they gonna compete for space with each other. My thought is, if too many branches try to take the same space, none will get enough sunlight. Also, if branches are touching at the woody parts, wind will cause them to rub and could possibly open up a wound that bugs can take advantage of. Basically I take tree trimming mentality and apply to pepper trimming :lol:
 
I recently got a jalapeno seedling. Potted into a bigger pot and topped it. Unlike the rest of my plants that I have topped, this jalapeno is throwing flowers from the small (1cm) branches that have just started to form.
 
None of my other plants flowered until weeks after (and substantially longer branches). Is this normal?
 
Thanks!
 
Chinawhite said:
Jamison, how do you get the stem to thicken? Do I keep on topping off the top?
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Getting strong thick stems and stalks usually has more to do with exercising your plant. A good way to do that is to get a strong fan on them and make sure they are always moving in the wind. Gotta keep them babies dancin. I also shake my plants almost like you were trying to pollinate them. The more they move around the better.
 
I topped three of my plants a few weeks ago to the point where they were pretty much sticks in dirt (they had no leaves at all on the bottom). Needless to say it was a scary step for me as a newbie, but being that all those plants only had one pod each for me last summer, I couldn't see conditions getting worse other than having to chuck them, so I took that step and made them into sticks that stood out about 6 inches from the dirt.
I am happy to say I am seeing tiny leaves starting to grow where there were empty/broken nodes. They are growing pretty fast too and all indoors under a grow light.
Can't wait for the weather to get better so I can put them outside where hopefully the warmer weather and sun will give a boost to their development.
 
Thanks for the informative post Jamison.
 
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