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Encouraging plants to ripen...

Josh

Josh

Hey guys and gals,
I was wondering if anyone removes all the foliage from their plants at the end of the season to encourage the remaining pods to ripen? I believe I have seen Chris do this in the past. I have left a message in one of his threads but was hoping to get some feedback from other members. How well does it work? When should it be done?

Thanks
Josh
 
Hey Josh,
I also do that, I continuously remove more and more leaves during the ripening stage. The first to go are the ones that are directly shading the pods, some leaves shade during different times of the day, so I check pretty often and rip excess leaves and hope all the pepper ripens before the party is over. :)
 
Pray a lot and they'll ripen......... It will also get your attention off the plants which will help with ripening.
 
I did it this year for one of my hab plants. I cut back the branches and leaves as well as trim the roots. I've also been putting it out in the sun when we get it. There is a product called RIPEN that claims to speed up the process, but I've not been able to find it anywhere locally and haven't tried it so I can't comment on how well it works.

I have also read that Ethylene gas is also used stimulate the ripening process, but again, I haven't tried it so I can't comment on how well it works. I'm not even sure where you would get it either.
 
I think you can get mixed results. See I just potted/winterized 8 plants and things had already started going red just a little on most of my stuff but the peter peppers and jalapenos have not turned much where as my Joes Long Cayennes are almost all red. I de-leaved, cut back roots, and trimed all the branches except those with pods on them. So my guess is that A. it either helps some plants and not others or B. it realy doesnt make any difference and the plant will continue to ripen at the same rate it would if nothing was done.
 
Now if you were to use the banana/apple method to give yourself red (ripe) peppers is the reaction just ripe skin or does it actually cause the seeds to be mature to? I only ask because seeds should not be used (my understanding) from unripened pods. So I guess what I am askign is if you have an unripened pod and assuming the seeds in it are not yet usable will the banana/apple method allow the pod to ripen AND make the seed viable for planting?
 
at the moment, three of my plants are shedding their leaves while the pods are ripening.once i harvest the ripe pods, i'll prune the branches ready for overwintering.
if i want the leaves to fall, all i need do is shake the plant.maybe you guys in the US need to do that manually?
 
crazy8, my understanding is that it'll get the pod to ripen, but it's not going to get the pod to maturity. Meaning if the seeds aren't fully mature, gassing them isn't going to force them to grow into a usable state.
 
That was pretty much my guess to, that's why I was asking. :D To me maturity comes with growth and gassing is not going to make the pepper grow unless you were doing CO2 but this requires to pepper to be attached to the plant of course ;)
 
Thanks for the input everybody. I still am unsure of what I will do. Maybe I will try it on a plant or two. I just wish I had a few of the same variety so I could do a little bit of a comparison. I guess it really isn't a big deal. I have harvested plenty of pods already. It is just sad seeing so many potential pods left behind.
 
I cut back all foliage that isn't producing pods, and it seems to help a lot. I don't think seeds will change if picked too early, but it doesn't meen that seeds from all green peppers won't germinate, just try to use the most mature pods for seed collecting and plant extras. Its usually easy to tell if a seed is good or not, but not always.
 
I have heard that tomatoes ripen on the vine faster if there is smoke around them. Maybe you can try BBQing next to your plants and somehow maybe get a fan to blow the smoke towards them. I'm guessing the smoke causes stress to the plants, which in turn causes the pods to ripen for survival.
 
pick it

After reading your post I though I would try it on my plants since I'm fast running out of sunny warm days and I've got some very late bloomers. I have to say it really seemed to help, particularly with my red habs, they seem to be ripening much quicker. hardly scientific just an observation. but I don't think it could hurt any. happy picking!
 
POTAWIE said:
I cut back all foliage that isn't producing pods, and it seems to help a lot.
Click to expand...

I will probably begin doing this today or tomorrow. I will also remove all the small pods that won't have time to fully grow.

SnakeDoc said:
I have heard that tomatoes ripen on the vine faster if there is smoke around them. Maybe you can try BBQing next to your plants and somehow maybe get a fan to blow the smoke towards them. I'm guessing the smoke causes stress to the plants, which in turn causes the pods to ripen for survival.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the idea but it seems like there would be too many variables in trying to control the smoke.

kamo33 said:
After reading your post I though I would try it on my plants since I'm fast running out of sunny warm days and I've got some very late bloomers. I have to say it really seemed to help, particularly with my red habs, they seem to be ripening much quicker. hardly scientific just an observation. but I don't think it could hurt any. happy picking!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the observation. I will probably try it on a plant or two.
 
what i've heard & tried for ripening unripe pods.
the banana in paper bag & hanging the pulled or cut plant unside down.

the banana paper bag method worked better.


I think I tried the method of cutting branches off last season but was kinda too late when heard of this to make some kind of impact for ripening pods so no opinion on that method.

I think it depends on how close the pod is being to ripe when you start these ripening methods, & if the pods are not close enough to being ripe...well it doesnt matter what you do, they're not gonna ripen. only certain ones will ripening cuz they were close enough to being ripe from the getgo.

& no....the seeds wouldnt be worth saving at these late stages of forced ripening (not saying they wont grow...but!), you have all summer to save true ripe seeds, why are you waiting until very late harvest season for some seeds ?
 
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