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bloom drop question

hotenuff4u

hotenuff4u

so my cayenne has been blooming nonstop for 3 weeks now, it's a decent size about 2-2.5 feet tall, and as soon as the blooms get nice and full they drop....avg. outdoor temp 85F, nights are around 72F average. healthy plant, i'm positive the pH and soil is good, i don't think I need to fert it, as it was transplanted right before it started blooming in some "Foxfarm ocean whatever" soil. but it continues to grow and bloom and continues to drop blooms, no fruit yet...should i just wait patiently or intervene?

p.s. forgot to mention. i did notice some spider mites and actual spiders, no aphids, and i think i got rid of them in time, i baby these bad boys, and no leaf damage i can see....but now they're gone and still dropping blooms...
 
I read up on this for tomatoes earlier today. Not sure if the same applies with peppers, but one of the causes I found was excessive humidity. IIRC, SC is a pretty humid area, so maybe that could be the cause? I'm no expert... not even experienced enough to be a novice... but I'd probably wait a while and see what happens. I know from last year that cayennes grow fast, so I'm sure once they start hanging on, you should have some prolific plants. Or maybe you baby them TOO much. :)
Good luck.
 
It's probably temperature related. Flowers can abort for any of the reasons below...

No Fruit Set (Assuming Flower hasnt dropped or been aborted):
Mean temps lower than 16'C (60.8F) or greater than 32'C (89.6F)

Flower Drop:
Nighttime temps greater than 24'C (75.2F)

Maxiumum Flower Set:
Day and Night temps between 16'C (60.8F) and 21'C (69.8F)

Pollen Germination:
Optimal temps between 20'C (68F) and 25'C (77F)
Pollen is harmed at temperatures above 30'C (86F)
Pollen is sterile if temps are above 30'C (86F) 15 days prior to anthesis (bloom)

Fruit Set:
Pollen tube growth (pollen travel) from stigma to egg (fruit) takes between 6 to 42 hours.
 
well, we haven't hit any days that i know of above 91 yet, and most on my porch (according to my meat thermometer in the soil) haven't gone above 88., night soil temps are around 72-75

i stopped ferting them 4ish weeks ago when i transplanted them into bigger pots with some fresh "fox farm ocean forest" soil...i was also drunk and forgot to mix it down with extra perlite and vermiculite but i didn't think that would matter much.

I water 1ce a week or so, with filtered water(again no ferts at all right now, waiting till a full 5 weeks of being in this new soil), pretty much wait until the top of the soil feels dryish, and always water until i see good drainage from the base

this particular cayenne is getting the most sun out of all my plants a full sunlight from about 8am-11am, full 3 hours, so if anything its lacking light i think...but my other plant a thai hot who gets about 1 hour of pure sun a day is popping like crazy

i've been hand pollinating every flower just to make sure so its not lack of cirulation, and it's definetly not lack of humidity as i have it inside a "mini greenhouse" constructed of chicken wire and plastic wrap, which so far has worked wonders, and helped keep bugs away....but i also look at smokenstein said,....is it possible too much humidity?

some would say i'm worrying too much about some plants.......but since all i do is work, spend time with the wife and baby, and drink alcohol for a hobby, this has become my new "healthier hobby" and i refuse to fail at anything and still learning a lot

my gut feeling does tell me at the end of the year, i'll end up getting the most of this guy...but i guess it's almost the competitive side in me that wants the best of the best, LOL, i'm sure a lot of you understand....the biggest the badest, the most and hotest peppers you can get of each plant

on a good note my red savinas are looking good,...but on a bad note i had to start from scratch with my 7pots and trin scorpions
 
OK, I'll chime in now. What size pots are they in? If they're bigger than a gallon and you're watering once a week, this may be too much. My plants in 5 gallons haven't once showed signs of wilting and I haven't hand watered them since they hit the dirt almost a month ago. Periodic rain here though, so you may have to water more often, but overwatering might piss the plant off.


Second, if you're hand pollinating, you might be damaging the pistil of the flower which can also cause flowers to drop. If the pistil gets broken, the pollen tube cannot grow from the tip of the pistil down to the ovaries to pollenate them. Therefore seeds don't get fertilized. The plant knows this, and will drop the flowers if they're damaged. I think Chiles are excellent self-pollinators at least in my experience, so I would just leave them alone for a while and see how they go.
 
yeah, i started hand pollinating only half of them a few days ago for a more controlled experiment, we'll see what happens...they're in 4 gallon pots, but it's a covered patio, as well as the mini green houses on top so they get no rain whatsoever, only watered when i water them...and its not once a week, its more like randomly every 9ish days or so if i had to guess, like i said when the top of the soil feels almost bone dry then i water
 
I have been experiencing significant bloom drop lately as well. I have only, out of 9+ plants now coming up on 3-4 weeks putting out blooms, 2 chili's on my Fresno that have set and are growing-now around 1.5" (37mm or so) long. Every bloom I find that has fallen has a BB sized chili that didn't get it's chance, it coulda been a contenda...

Also useing the fox farm ocean forest. From how well the plants are doing I am nearly certain there is nothing wrong with nutes.

Reading the posts here I will rule out the humidity. Low humidity hits around 20% and highs right at 30%. Night time temps now only getting down to mid 60's (65+) as we get on with deep summer temps. Though it seems like you folks in the more humid areas have much better fruits going on, I don't think lower humidity is that big a deal either.

Given the arid condition I'm watering every other day. Even at every other day I see the plants wilt a bit, even under a shade that cuts the sun approx. 50%. Right now the average during the day is easily 100+. I think the plants are losing quite a bit of water during the day and not getting a lot of chance to recoup during the evening. Was watering around once a week but when summer set the plants yelled at me for more water.

From reading the above I suspect my water may not be helping. Not from over watering, but excessive mineral content. I don't think it's anything totally detrimental, I do have two pods growing, but it's probably not helping. I give deep waters so I see the run out at the bottom and even see a crust that has built up on the drain holes from the mineral build up.

At this point I'll play the waiting game. It kind of feels like the plants are too young to support children in these conditions so they let the blooms drop. Methinks mega pod set awaits in the not too long future. That said, Tequila Sunrise lookin like it's a weak ass producer. From three plants I've seen maybe a handful of bloom wannabe's that just end up dropping.

The lone habanero I have that was really set back by neeming is finally showing some bud locations. Fingers crossed that it doesn't go through this period of severe bloom drop as well. Hopefully it'll be mature enough to keep it's kids.

Was thinking I might find some info on a supplement that would help keep the pods on or find a blaring reason for the bloom droppage. After spending so much on the FF soil I think I'll let the soil prove it's merits, though.
 
Im resurrecting this old thread because Im curious to know how your plants made out since you had the problem with flowers dropping. I just bought some Ocean Forest as well. You mentioned that you repotted right before the plant started flowering and you added nutes at that time. Just so you know, Ocean Forest already has some nitrogen in it and that would probably cause your flower drop especially if you added ferts on top of that.
 
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