C. chinense dropping pods

[bongcloud]

I'm growing C. annuums, C. baccatums and C. chinenses this year. They are all flowering heavily, only annuum and baccatum flowers have a lot of pollen on them (baccatum more so than annuum, but they're both pretty loaded), whereas chinense anthers are blueish with no pollen on them whatsoever, it seems. I've tried crushing a few and hand-pollinating, but the flowers just drop a bit after dropping petals, in a day or few. The other two varieties are producing nicely, with almost no flower drop. They're all kept outside, in ~5gal pots, full sun from about 6 AM to 5 PM. They're mulched with ~2" of pine bark. We've had a couple of weeks of lower temperatures that average at around 60, cloudy with occasional thunderstorms and not much wind. I keep them out of rain and don't over/underwater. All ferts are organic and in the medium, no additional feeding so far (up-potted about 3 weeks ago). This has been happening for about a week, and around a dozen have dropped so far in total, on the 5 chinense plants. This is the first batch of flowers on them.
 
Most of what I've read online regarding similar cases can be summed up with "it could be normal, give them another week or so", so I'll probably just do that. Still, any help is appreciated. Cheers.

 

[Chilidude]

C. chinense is usually very sensitive when it comes to temperature swings, as they seems to start making pods when the day/night temperatures are consistent. The night temperatures are the most important in the pod production, when it starts to stay around 15c minimum at night then they should start that consistent pod production.

 

[willard3]

Flower drop probable causes:
 
1. Day temp too high >95F
2. Night temp too low <65F or too high >85F
3. Too much nitrogen fertilizer
4. Too much water
5. Low light levels (reduces fertility).
6. Very low humidity (reduces fertility)
7. Poor air circulation (air circulation contributes to pollination).
8. Lack of pollinating insects.
9. Size of pot
10. Too much mineral in feedwater.
11. Too much grower attention/anxiety.
 

 

[ShowMeDaSauce]

We had some cooler temps lately and way more rain that i would have liked. Crazy thing is all my chinenses went nuts with pod production during the rain. Plants that hardly had any buds now have lots of little pods in less than a week. Plants that had a fair amount of pods doubled and grew a bunch too.
 
After today though its going up to 95F+. Nights are still supposed to be in the mid 70s so they might be ok. The heat wave is only supposed to be around 4 days before returning to normal.

 

[bongcloud]

Flower drop probable causes:
 
1. Day temp too high >95F
2. Night temp too low <65F or too high >85F
3. Too much nitrogen fertilizer
4. Too much water
5. Low light levels (reduces fertility).
6. Very low humidity (reduces fertility)
7. Poor air circulation (air circulation contributes to pollination).
8. Lack of pollinating insects.
9. Size of pot
10. Too much mineral in feedwater.
11. Too much grower attention/anxiety.
 

 
I respect your consistency. You've been replying with that list for around a decade now. We never learn, do we?

 

[AJ Drew]

I often get an early wave of pods in the grow room.  Someone here mentioned what might be an evolutionary survival thing.  Early pods when the container is too small / plants get root bound.  So I am not sure about number 9 on that list.  Maybe it is a different stage of life sort of thing.  Like young plants pod up due to small containers, older plants drop flowers due to small containers.  No clue but I do like that first tiny wave of pods at plant out.

 

[AndyW]

I often get an early wave of pods in the grow room.  Someone here mentioned what might be an evolutionary survival thing.  Early pods when the container is too small / plants get root bound.  So I am not sure about number 9 on that list.  Maybe it is a different stage of life sort of thing.  Like young plants pod up due to small containers, older plants drop flowers due to small containers.  No clue but I do like that first tiny wave of pods at plant out.

I left a 3 inch tall habanero in a small 3 inch pot as an experiment and let it flower this year. It has a pod or two on it right now. That vs one I put in a gallon pot that's still dropping tons of flowers, albeit with a couple of pods set. My thinking is that a small rootbound plant will put out less flowers, but have a higher percentage of them stick around vs a more mature rootbound plant. I haven't done anything scientific to test this, but I saw a bell pepper plant in a 3 inch pot with 2-3 pods developing at a grocery store a month or two back. I doubt it had many more flowers.

 

[willard3]

 
I respect your consistency. You've been replying with that list for around a decade now. We never learn, do we?

 
 
Most people post before they search in the conviction that their problem is unique.

 

[bongcloud]

 
 
Most people post before they search in the conviction that their problem is unique.

 
That's why I've mentioned reading around. I'm pretty much certain that the flowers are dropping because they're not getting pollinated. However, I didn't find a proper reason or solution for stamens without pollen, other than the consistent "wait". I won't look for potential problems for another week or so, and in the meantime I'll attempt something I've sort of tried avoiding, and that's cross-pollinating with my annuums and baccatums.

 

[ShowMeDaSauce]

[Sigh]
 
Another day with some rain but i planned ahead with the dry fertilizer. Its been rained on twice or more since then. After today though we should get some upper 90s. Im hoping the additional organic nutrients might help. Kelp based products have given me stellar results in the past. I normally dont get horrible pod loss due to heat. Its mostly buds and blooms i lose. I got a buttload of chinense pods atm though and many on some sorta small plants. Probably even more flowers and buds too. My rocotos seem to drop flowers if you so much as fart too close to them. Mine are very fussy about what they like to set fruit.