Early Flowers

[jjs7741]

Well, it's about 10 days till plant out, weather permitting, and a number of my plants are starting to put out flower buds. Chinense and Annums alike. Of course, these will be pinched in order to concentrate on root and leaf mass.

Question of the day is: How long do you guys keep pinching? Do you continue to pinch for a bit while they are outside, or once they are out there, let nature take its course?

My answer to the question: I will continue to pinch through April. That will give the plants a couple of weeks to get used to their new surroundings and gain more roots mass and put on some more leaves before I let the flower buds mature. So, I will probably be looking at about the middle of May before I start to see flowers open.

I am curious to hear how you guys would answer this question as well and why. I think it will help some of the newer growers out there.

Thanks for looking!
jacob

 

[chillilover]

I would pinch untill the plnts are full size and ready to make pods.

 

[trinicoolieboy]

after seed tray (4 - 5 weeks) i "pot-up" to 1/2 gal. grow bags for about a month and a half.... any buds that appear here are GONE!........ i then transplant directly to the ground.......... for about a week or two.... any buds that appear are also gone...... by this time the plants are big and bushy....... and flowers appear like total madness!............ last year i planted a "cherry" wiri wiri....... and i could have sworn at one point there were more pods than leaves on the plant!........

 

[POTAWIE]

I've picked flowers off some annuums until as late as the beginning of July and had great results. If you don't pick early buds/pods, the first flush of pods is always small and a lot of the plants' energy goes towards pod production so overall you'll lose lots of productivity. Once you really know how certain plants grow then you can a better feel for how big you want them before you let pods develop. Chinenses I usually don't worry so much about since they usually drop their early flowers in my cooler spring conditions