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Cut back or leave alone?

chad s

chad s

My plants are a foot tall at best yet many ae starting to produce flowers. Dont know if the goofy weather is causing this or what. The question is do I leave them go, or is it best to pick off the flowers or clip the tops to encourage more growth?

Thanks!!

Chad
 
I leave mine to get the earlier pods. Many here pinch the buds and flowers.
It be up to you mate, i would think that at that height they would be a bit big to tip sucessfully now.
 
I'm not a big fan of how early pods taste, i pinch them off ruthlessly to let the plants grow and branch faster. The smallest plant i would ever let pods form is about a foot, i prefer them to be a little larger than that.

Sometimes it depends on the variety though.
 
what kind of plants are you talking about? i have hot lemon that by nature shoot up to 3ft in height(in my environment), then have goatsweed that i monitor so i can pinch leaves to encourage branching. both plants are completely different in nature.
 
Burning Colon they are all hots, douglah, 7pot jonah, billy boy douglah, yellow 7, yellow bhut, marouga scorp, yellow scorp and nagas. Last year this time they were just growing like mad and got a couple feet tall before they started flowering and ended up between 3 and 4 feet tall at the end of the season. I am just wondering if I let the flowers go will the plants switch into pepper production mode and limit the overall growth and produce less peppers in the long run?

Thanks,

Chad
 
Plants will grow and make pods at the same time, but I just go by the feel - if they "seem" to small to be making pods already, then pinch. If they aren't in their final location (i.e. - large container or ground), I always pinch. I normally like my superhots to get close to 18" before I let them do their thing. IMO, more vegetation always equals more pods in the long run.
 
I haven't been pinching mine... but then mine haven't been setting pods until they reach about a foot in height anyway. As long as the plants have established themselves and have a decent amount of existing growth they should be alright.

Someone should do a time-lapse video of a few plants side by side, some pinched and some not... just to see.
 
I usually leave C. chinense flowers/pods alone, they seem to work things out on their own. I've done lots of side by side trials, and for me the only plants that seem to benefit from bud pinching is the large podded C. annuum types
 
Wow seems like we should have had a vote. I personally pinch and prune my plants a LOT. I even cut the top to encourage they grow outward. My last years overwintered TS are only about 2' tall, but are around 4-5' wide from branch to branch.

The theory is you want them to grow outward allowing them to get more coverage and to prevent bottom "shadowing" where only the top part of the plant gets majority of the sun. In fact some of my plants that grow too fast I actually tie the stalks to the side of the pot to encourage them to grow out and not upward. In my personal experience I've gone from getting 50-75 fruit to around 100-150 fruit with short wide plants.
 
LGHT said:
Wow seems like we should have had a vote. I personally pinch and prune my plants a LOT. I even cut the top to encourage they grow outward. My last years overwintered TS are only about 2' tall, but are around 4-5' wide from branch to branch.

The theory is you want them to grow outward allowing them to get more coverage and to prevent bottom "shadowing" where only the top part of the plant gets majority of the sun. In fact some of my plants that grow too fast I actually tie the stalks to the side of the pot to encourage them to grow out and not upward. In my personal experience I've gone from getting 50-75 fruit to around 100-150 fruit with short wide plants.
Click to expand...
It's all about lightning and ferts... Here is my 2 month's old baby:
http://oi49.tinypic.com/bfs19z.jpg

It has been under 250cfl during winter and it made about 450 pods, when i took it outside...
That is Peruvian white aka white bullet hab...
 
Seems like a split opinion from experienced growers, I will go half and half and see how it goes, I will update the results.

Thanks for the help everyone!

Chad
 
I'm pretty much convinced, based on my past experiences over the last few years, that pinching early buds for at least the first few weeks in their final containers is the way to go. The only thing I haven't quite figured out is *when* it is best to stop pinching and let the plants flower and produce fruit. I'm winging it, but I'm going to slowly phase my pinching out within the next five days or so, some are ready right now to stop really IMO.

Still, one plant this year is starting to worry me--my Naga Morich has been budding out the ass, and I'm constantly picking buds off of it. I fertilized it about a week ago with high-nitrogren, low phosphorus and potassium fertilizer to redirect its energy, but it still insists on producing buds instead of growing larger. The rest of the plants are putting on some pretty nice growth though... but the last few days, unfortunately, they've slowed down due to the cooler temperatures and cloudiness.

I have never tried topping plants yet, I might eventually try that--but it seems kind of unnecessary though, because most of my plants are putting out new side stems naturally...
 
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