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Debudding...When to stop?

Roguejim

Roguejim

My chinenses have been indoors under T8s since mid-January. All others have been under the same lights since mid-March.

I have been picking off any buds that I see during this time, but hardening off will probably start this upcoming weekend. Plant out will then be 1-2 weeks after hardening off. Anyway, when do I stop debudding the plants, and let nature run its course?
 
That depends, ...a typical Habanero will produce clusters of flowers whereas the Indy/Trindy superhots spit out random sometimes double buds at the nodes early in the season. If you're growing mainly super hots I'd back off pinching off anymore. They take a long time to ripen (100 to 120 days) and you do won't multiple harvests. The plants will continue to grow on their own...either way.

Now the annuum can be another story. Most larger fruited plants produce less pods. But pinching the 1st few ways of flowers you'll encourage the plant to branch more and generate more buds. Ive done that with my Jalapenos thru the big sweet bell peppers. It does help bring in more pods in the long run.
 
willard3 said:
I don't know why you'd start picking off the buds. They're making fruit, the very thing you're after, leave them alone.
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If you overwinter a pepper you want to keep it growing back foliage and roots instead of focusing on flowering for the first part of the winter. Later, it's okay to let it flower because then it'll be producing fruit all summer. The idea is that if the plant's flowering, you want to make sure it's already got good foliage. Topping is the same sort of thing, you chop off part of a plant now so that it's more plentiful later.
 
Pepper-Guru said:
There are uses and applications for pruning perennial plants like peppers, but yeild is not one of them.
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So what are you saying? Should 3-month old indoor plants that begin budding be left alone, or not? This is my first year growing, and what I've gotten thus far on the Internet is conflicting info.

Pepper-Guru said:
There are uses and applications for pruning perennial plants like peppers, but yeild is not one of them.
Click to expand...

So what are you saying? Should 3-month old indoor plants that begin budding be left alone, or not? This is my first year growing, and what I've gotten thus far on the Internet is conflicting info.
 
Well shit.... I thought that the idea was to pinch off the buds so the plant focuses on growing instead of making fruit... But what this guy is saying it has no bearing on the amounts of pods... That's just plain confusing. Then why the F would somebody want a "bigger" plant with the same yield as a smaller plant without pruning..I'm with you Jim, not a f'n clue. I'll pinch some on one plant, and leave another alone to see the difference for myself..
 
IVe been meaning to touch on this at length Because I see a lot of confusion here in the forums. I'll try and explain in a few...at the restaurant right now...brb
 
I think it must depend on the size of the plant relative to the number of fertilised flowers/pods you have. Three individuals of one of my habanero varieties has put out >8 pods at the first node, and >5 at the second despite the fact they were only about 6 inches tall! As sad as it was, I picked all but 2 of the baby pods off as the plants just stopped growing and put all their energy into the pods. I noticed the same growth stunting on my cayennes and yellow waxes. On the other hand my morugas and some scotch bonnets that are pretty beefy looking have a couple of pods on them and are still growing like crazy! It's all a relative effect.

This is my take on it:

The total rate of growth (i.e. rate of production of sugars) depends on foliage coverage, nutrient supply, light and water (which in itself is affected by the size and breathability of the root system)

Pods growing will consume some of that energy, how many will determine how much is consumed. A plant at any given size has a maximum number of pods it can support, after that, the buds and flowers get aborted. The rest will go into supporting the plant growth. This can be distorted by changing the nutrient concentrations; ie higher nitrogen = lots of foliar growth and less fruit, higher potassium and particularly phosphorus favours flowering and fruit.

If you let all your flowers turn to pods now, the plants will carrying on growing but will decrease their growth rate as more flowers are fertilised and more energy is diverted away from growing the plant to growing the pods, till eventually the plant reaches an equilibria when all it's energy is being used for fruit growth. When pods ripen and are picked off there is a surplus which leads to further growth and new flowers. Also bear in mind that if your plant has more pods growing than it can handle they will probably end up smaller and/or take longer than normal to become ripe.

So the answer to your original question (when to stop debudding) requires the further question: are your plants big enough to support the number of pods you expect to attain? or are you happy to pick off a fraction of them and produce a trickle of pods whilst allowing your plant to carry on growing at a slower rate? If no to both, let them grow some more before allowing them to produce pods.

Just saw your earlier post Pepper-guru, didn't mean to usurp your reply. Would love to hear your take on it too. I have a science background but none of the experience you have I'm sure.
 
I have a moruga thats is about 5 inches and it is flowering like crazy , i have been picking off about 15 buds a day.. I thought you were suppose to pick the buds on smaller plants so it could focus on vegging?

I
 
The main mistake I see growers here making is simply treating peppers like marijuana. Pepper plants are in no way photo sensitive and require no specific amount of hours to fruit. There is no "veg and bloom" with peppers. They veg and bloom simultaneously. This entire "veg and bloom" mentality has originated with marijuana growers and as someone who has years of experience growing both types of plants I can tell you, they are not the same. This goes for nutrient regimine as well. Pepper plants require an even NPK ratio throughout their growth cycle. Where as with photo period specific plants, the grower can tailor their feeding to those individual cycles.

Topping and fimming is a technique mj growers use to promote branching and, seemingly more tops. Buds. Smaller but more. I remember the first glog experiments with this from overgrow. Dierwolf and myself comparing different pruning and training techniques, it was all very enlightening. In the end pruning in the mj world is still disputed as to whether it increases yeild. I'm positive of the changes in plant structure but when all is said and done, weight on unpruned plants vs pruned at harvest come out about the same. Instead of one main top and four to five smaller ones, you get 20-30 smaller, longer buds...

Now with pepper plants, there are reasons to prune. But it's not the reason people have placed on the subject. The main reasons are for space issues, light issues, and time issues. If you have plants that are growing up into your indoor lights, or your lights aren't intense enough to ensure a dense canopy (leggy plants). In no way does removing a pepper plants pods ever create more pods. I know I'm gonna turn some growers heads with that statement, even some that are great growers and have made topics regarding the subject. It is, however, pretty simple. No photo period, no vegetative vs flowering, no pruning in hopes of changing yeild.
 
Pepper-Guru said:
The main mistake I see growers here making is simply treating peppers like marijuana. Pepper plants are in no way photo sensitive and require no specific amount of hours to fruit. There is no "veg and bloom" with peppers. They veg and bloom simultaneously. This entire "veg and bloom" mentality has originated with marijuana growers and as someone who has years of experience growing both types of plants I can tell you, they are not the same. This goes for nutrient regimine as well. Pepper plants require an even NPK ratio throughout their growth cycle. Where as with photo period specific plants, the grower can tailor their feeding to those individual cycles.

Topping and fimming is a technique mj growers use to promote branching and, seemingly more tops. Buds. Smaller but more. I remember the first glog experiments with this from overgrow. Dierwolf and myself comparing different pruning and training techniques, it was all very enlightening. In the end pruning in the mj world is still disputed as to whether it increases yeild. I'm positive of the changes in plant structure but when all is said and done, weight on unpruned plants vs pruned at harvest come out about the same. Instead of one main top and four to five smaller ones, you get 20-30 smaller, longer buds...

Now with pepper plants, there are reasons to prune. But it's not the reason people have placed on the subject. The main reasons are for space issues, light issues, and time issues. If you have plants that are growing up into your indoor lights, or your lights aren't intense enough to ensure a dense canopy (leggy plants). In no way does removing a pepper plants pods ever create more pods. I know I'm gonna turn some growers heads with that statement, even some that are great growers and have made topics regarding the subject. It is, however, pretty simple. No photo period, no vegetative vs flowering, no pruning in hopes of changing yeild.
Click to expand...

As I sit here, brew in hand, reviewing my response from earlier, I actually think I covered the main point pretty well. The only other elaborations I may want to add are that I am in no way saying pruning doesn't have its applications in the pepper world. It does, and those applications are geared toward indoor growers, ornamental growers (bonchi too), and those who are starting indoors to go outdoors or bringing indoors from outdoors(overwintering). These applications just aren't for maximizing yield! Think about it. Indoor growers are limited in root zone volumes, foliage space, light intensity, etc. Indoor growers are constantly moving things around, transplanting, and chasing behind the plants. Most pruning done indoors is for changing leggy plant structures in small containers under fairly weak, artificial lighting. The plants are only going to be able to do what the "container" allows them to do. No indoor grower is going to, or ever has, produced more fruit on a plant than the same one outdoors in the ground; No matter how much pruning or flower picking is done. There are valid points to be made about stalling a plant from fruiting by pruning when you are waiting on something. Bigger container, transplant outside, etc. Does pruning let more light in? Of course, again, another valid point. However, think about the intensity of the light of the sun...it has no issue penetrating the canopy and triggering all those leaf nodes to go BOOM! Again...you see were are chasing mother nature. Most growers don't own HID lights so over time, there are little tricks we develop in order to manipulate the plants into being aesthetically pleasing to our "growing egos". Think about the way a pepper plant grows...look at pictures or watch one over time. The nodes are the bud/flower sites. Pick the flowers there and thats it...they are gone. Never to return. Then the next node up, the same thing. Now you can make the point that more pruning = more branching=more nodes=more flowers...right? Yes. But again, if the plant has everything it needs and is growing under optimum conditions it will branch out and get WAY bigger than any indoor, manipulated specimen. With peppers, bigger really is better. If growers started thinking in terms of trying to grow the biggest plant possible then the conclusion to this debate would come much sooner.

I've done all the pruning, bud picking, fimming, lst'ing, scroging etc that you can think of! Its fun to mess around with the plants, but in the end, I've come to terms with the wisdom and wonderment that is mother nature. You can't outdo it. A naturally growing, healthy, vigorous plant with plenty of root space and a great soil food web, is the only thing thats gonna PUMP out the pods. :P
 
I topped due to leggyness on lamped plants, but I also topped one of two branches on my bushy hab and its putting out huge amounts of new leaves. Not to say I made the right decision but I don't think it's the wrong one either. I just like to fart around with my plants so that's probably why, but I'm not growing for commercial purposes. Plus I'm inexperienced so take my words with a pound of salt. Just have fun if its a hobby!
 
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