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).
Now here is the one I pinched about a week ago.
And the two I pinched yesterday as well that are under my lights and already showing the effects.
(this one below is the biggest one I have so no surprise it showed effects the fastest)
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!!!
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).
Now here is the one I pinched about a week ago.
And the two I pinched yesterday as well that are under my lights and already showing the effects.
(this one below is the biggest one I have so no surprise it showed effects the fastest)
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!!!