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pics About pinching the tops off (my experience with pics)

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Doomsdaykillz

As many of you know, I have recently started growing chili plants. Now I would like to keep some indoors (possibly) so height can be a problem, so I looked up pruning. I found out that it makes the auxillary buds (the buds that you either can or cannot see between the leaf stem and the main stem right above where they connect) grow out. I found this interesting because my chili plants, espcecially my Bhut Jolokia plants have pretty large auxillary buds but they seem to take forever to grow and the plant wasnt getting much taller or bushier. Part of this is becasue I left them in 4'' pots (2 pots had 3-4 plants in each and 1 had only 1) which heavily stunted them, bu tthey are 4.5 months old.

I plucked the top off of one of my plants (pinched it with my nails) and in a week I noticed the buds growing! It was realy wild looking. I decided to pluck the tops off of all my Bhuts and the one thai chili plant (shows less affects but I am sure it helps because now it has two places to grow frmo instead of the one stem) and they too showed results.

I am expecting to have super bushy plants now because of this which is perfect because I might even be able to keep a few indoors under my lights without them burning up on the bulbs.


This is what plants look like that didn't have their tops pinched (these were pinched yesterday and unlike two of my larger ones which happen to be under lights which is why i think they are growing faster now, their buds haven't grown yet).

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Now here is the one I pinched about a week ago.

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And the two I pinched yesterday as well that are under my lights and already showing the effects.
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(this one below is the biggest one I have so no surprise it showed effects the fastest)
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Now, I am not sure if the smaller bhuts and thais that were crammed in pots with each other and heavily stunted are going to grow or even survive, but it doesn't matter because the 3 bhuts and 1 thai plant I have under my lights are thriving!!!
 
Topping is what this technique is sometimes called, and I highly recommend for bushier plants. I have done that with most of my bigger plants, and under an ideal watering/feeding/lighting schedule, the auxiliary buds will fluff out much quicker and the stem will also become thicker a bit quicker (rhyme time!).

Plants look good, keep it up!
 
I have done this before with many different types of of plants. It works very well. For having a shorter but bushier plant, you will have more nodes which equals more peppers.
 
I usually do that on all my plants when young. Then what I do is tie some of the longer stems coming off the side to the side of the pot to encourage them to grow wider and not taller. This allows for the sun to get a much large amount of leaves over a tall plant that shades the lower leaves below.
 
i also do this to all my plants

this one is from my aerogarden since the max height is only 24inches i have to cut it down and make it wider instead
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Chewi, try getting a lot more light to your plant, particularly the lower parts. Light is usually the problem with leggy plants. When you top the plant it will force the plant to try to grow out of other nodes. It will bud out a couple of really tiny leaves, and if they get the right amount of light, they will start growing outwards. The more light reaches these tiny fresh budding leaves, the more of them will grow out into new branches.

Hope this helps.
 
mrz1988 said:
Chewi, try getting a lot more light to your plant, particularly the lower parts. Light is usually the problem with leggy plants. When you top the plant it will force the plant to try to grow out of other nodes. It will bud out a couple of really tiny leaves, and if they get the right amount of light, they will start growing outwards. The more light reaches these tiny fresh budding leaves, the more of them will grow out into new branches.

Hope this helps.
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thats true...if u gonna check the pic i posted for my aerogarden i remove the top part growth so the light can reach the bottom part so far so good,
 
arenew leaves form the nodes usually yellow? Mine are under super bright lights btu they are yellow. Otherwsie they loko perfect. I am guessing they will color up to dark green soon??
 
michaellustfield said:
I'm pretty sure that new growth is always a lighter color. Especially when that growth is forced.
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I don't know about that. In my experiences so far with topping, none of the new growth has been yellow. In my experience, new growth being yellow is a sign of nitrogen deficiency. I had some CGN22184 C.Frutescens that were yellow for awhile until I began amending the soil with composted poultry manure and potting them into larger containers. They now are darkened up nicely, although still a paler green than my C.Chinense or C.Annuum.
 
You can get the same effect by Low Stress Training but you can keep the top. I just tie the main stalk down to the side of the pot and as it grows back vertically I keep tying them down around the pot in a circle. All the auxillary buds will start growing vertically and fill in as main stalks. You get quite the bushy plant like this and you don't have to sacrifice tops.
 
Definitely not pinching buds in this thread. Had me rather confused.

If you're using HPS lights they will make the leaves look yellow.
 
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