Extreme pruning

I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.  They spent all that time building up leaves to promote good growth then you went and robbed them of that.
 
No, it is wrong to prune those.  Either grow fewer plants or spread them out to catch more light, unless you're so bored with this hobby that growing large healthy plant with lots of peppers is no longer the goal.
 
Plants have evolved over billions of years to grow leaves where it benefits them to do so.  When you cut those off you are making sure the plant looses the best opportunity biology adapted it to take advantage of.
 
Domesticating and farming anything, by definition, goes against what "nature" intended.  You don't really think we have all of these great strains without human involvement do you?
 
Even then, as related to pruning, wild peppers get pruned "naturally" by grazers like deer or tapir, or anything else running around in the forests of South America, pruning is healthy for a plant because it promotes new growth and allows it more nodes to produce seeds..
 
I try to leaf at least one leave at the end of each branch, to ensure that sap continues to flow and will eventually regenerate. Not trying to cow pow on the extreme pruning here, I am looking forward to the results :)
 
Experimentation is just another spice.
 
Saying something is wrong based on what is natural and what is not is kind of moot. Nature doesn't pinch off flower buds to increase yield, unless I've missed something there. If everyone was content to do things within the context of normal, where would that leave us?
 
The chinense seem to benefit the most from the pruning/topping (FIM-ing, actually). The annums and pubescens not so much (I only have jalapeno for annum, but about 4 pubs)... they are growing side shots, but very slow and seem to be more keen on growing in height. Baccatums can't really tell, because the aji cristal really grows (fast), while the aji limon (lemon drop) is slow as jalapeno.
 
Will report in about a week with the results, but I am pretty confident that it will turn out fine in the end (I can afford to lose some of them, although I would rather not).
 
Wish you all the best and a happy 2014 growing season!
 
ikeepfish said:
Domesticating and farming anything, by definition, goes against what "nature" intended.  You don't really think we have all of these great strains without human involvement do you?
 
Even then, as related to pruning, wild peppers get pruned "naturally" by grazers like deer or tapir, or anything else running around in the forests of South America, pruning is healthy for a plant because it promotes new growth and allows it more nodes to produce seeds..
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Pruning promotes more early nodes but over the course of a reasonable length season it can cut your yield quite a bit.  When I see people posting about yield and pruning as a solution they are usually talking about dozens of pods rather than a thousand or more.
 
Plants produce leaves based upon sites that sun is hitting.  Pruned compact plants have far lower sun gathering capability, often half or more of the leave area is shaded which is not good unless it's an extremely hot climate and you can't provide other sources of shade.   Listen to people with huge plants and 1000 pods, not the ones struggling to have 200.
 
Dave2000 said:
 
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spicy chicken ( http://driedhotpeppers.com/ ) supported this method and he grows  thousands.
 
Can you accept this logical argument?
Plants have evolved in nature to grow in their environments. 
When we grow plants in our gardens we are introducing them to a different environment (hopefully much better) than they are used to.
There could be things we can encourage the plant to do differently. (simulating really sped up evolution!)
 
Now does this make sense about pruning?
If we don't prune most peppers are observed creating 1 main trunk and 2 top branches.
If we do prune peppers the plant will grow more branches out of its nodes instead of just leaves.
The more branches we have the more nodes we have overall.
The more nodes, the more areas for the plant to put out fruit.
 
A question that must be answered..
Does the effort of making more branches stress the plant enough to reduce its overall fruit being capacity? (spends more energy on vegetation than fruits)
From posts of lots of people doing topping  / pruning on youtube, growlogs. I would say no, many have observed a net increase in the amount of pods.
 
OKGrowin said:
spicy chicken ( http://driedhotpeppers.com/ ) supported this method and he grows  thousands.
 
Can you accept this logical argument?
Plants have evolved in nature to grow in their environments. 
When we grow plants in our gardens we are introducing them to a different environment (hopefully much better) than they are used to.
There could be things we can encourage the plant to do differently. (simulating really sped up evolution!)
 
Now does this make sense about pruning?
If we don't prune most peppers are observed creating 1 main trunk and 2 top branches.
If we do prune peppers the plant will grow more branches out of its nodes instead of just leaves.
The more branches we have the more nodes we have overall.
The more nodes, the more areas for the plant to put out fruit.
 
A question that must be answered..
Does the effort of making more branches stress the plant enough to reduce its overall fruit being capacity? (spends more energy on vegetation than fruits)
From posts of lots of people doing topping  / pruning on youtube, growlogs. I would say no, many have observed a net increase in the amount of pods.
Click to expand...
 
... but under what conditions does Spicy Chicken grow thousands and is it thousands per plant?  I am talking about 1000 per plant, single season (~ season meaning not close to year round growing conditions due to freezing winters) without overwintering, no greenhouse, nothing special.  Anyone can grow a field full of plants and end up with many thousands in total if they don't do something terrible to them, no disrespect meant towards Spicy Chicken at all as I do not know anything about his operation, am not referring to it at all.
 
The mechanism of growing leaves in response to light is the same benefit whether in the native environment or a new one.  You are certainly not speeding up evolution, the seeds are genetically the same either way.  Encouraging a plant to do things differently is counter to the evolution that resulted in survival of the fittest.  Plants that had irregular leaf growth became extinct due to this.
 
It is false that not pruning causes only a trunk and two branches.  Those two will fork, and fork again, and again, and again, etc., doubling the number of branches and sites for pods every time, but most importantly the plant spreads out to a larger surface area relative to the horizon to catch more sun so it has more energy from that as well as more leaves to do so.  You are writing as though you never get your plants to be more than tiny little things so there is something else wrong besides them being pruned or not.
 
The bottom line is the pruning is a step sideways instead of fixing the problem causing low pod production.  As I've written previously one of those problems may be too short a growing season and no ability to use a greenhouse, but I see people pruning like it's the thing to do without consideration of this, being swayed to believe it is of benefit in other situations when it is usually very detrimental IF the most important factor is pod production rather than wind resistance or aesthetic styling or some other factor.
 
i dont know why this is an arguement, some people have had better results pruning and some not pruning, my tip is to grow the same plant 1 year in your area and have the exact same conditions, soil, watering, lighting, ect. then prune one and not the other, if you find you get more pods not pruned then dont, if you find you get more pruned then by all means prune away
 
Balduvian said:
i dont know why this is an arguement, some people have had better results pruning and some not pruning, my tip is to grow the same plant 1 year in your area and have the exact same conditions, soil, watering, lighting, ect. then prune one and not the other, if you find you get more pods not pruned then dont, if you find you get more pruned then by all means prune away
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     Maybe I missed something but I don't get the feeling anyone is arguing here. It feels more like a healthy debate about the pros and cons of different pruning techniques. Nothing wrong with sharing ideas, opinions and facts - I think that's why we're all here to begin with.
 
     If someone were to perform an experiment as you suggested (great idea, btw!), I would only recommend that you add more reps than just one. That would greatly help isolate the variable in question and reduce the possibility of anomalous results from external forces. 
     It might also be a good idea to note other effects brought about by extreme pruning - ability of the plants to withstand wind, ability to shade pods from sun, disease resistance, ability to hold pods off the ground, etc… What good is a whole bunch of pods if your plant has no central structure and all your heavily-laden side shoots end up in the mud? Or what if your plant is so bushy that it stays wet long after dew or rain has evaporated off of unpruned plants? This can lead to foliar disease.
     
     Being a certified arborist, I understand that there are many important factors to take into consideration before I make any cut on a tree or perennial shrub (like a pepper plant). Whether it's pruning a lilac bush to promote rejuvenation and flower production, pruning an ash tree for safety and aesthetics, or pruning an apple tree for orchard production and disease/pest resistance, it's always important to keep the health of the specimen a priority. 
     I won't disagree that it's fun to see all that new growth explode from every node on a freshly jacked-up pepper plant, but it would be difficult to make the case that doing so is in the plant's best interests.
 
I think pruning is acceptable, and even encouraged. Done correctly, you are in fact removing damaged and non-productive parts of plants in order for them to self repair and improving the plant health. And those plants and trees in the wild, they get chewed and pecked on, and all other things, but they still grow, survive, and thrive.
 
Gabriel
http://diyaquaponicstips.com
 
Bend them over and tie them down!
 
 
You guys know what I'm talking about ;)
 
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and a few weeks later
 
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Moral of the story: Man, I wish I were a Tapir, I'd prune peppers all day long.
 
 
I mistakenly did some extreme pruning via my extreme watering and am quite pleased with the result on my cumari do paras. Pic is a week old now but check it out:
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I'm of the opinion that if I start way early I can work in the space and lighting that I have to plant out with the thickest, branchiest, rootiest plants possible for my particular climate and season.
 
Now, if I lived in nature's desired climate for these babies, hell I'd just throw a handful of seeds ing the garden and let 'em go. Unless of course I wanted to keep a particular shape to my awsome chilli trees.
 
I usually only top my plants but have decided to also do some triming/pruning this year since i have the time.  My method has been to trim all leaves except the two biggest. Once the plant starts to make a comeback I trim of the last two original leaves.  The plants are looking great
 
Random
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Overall view, the ones in the middle were trimmed about 1.5 weeks ago, the ones to the left were trimmed about 3 days ago.
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Manzano
MANZANO1.jpg
 
Sorry for not posting for a while, but these are the 2 week mark pictures (with the originals for easier comparison):
 
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Sorry for not having the time to put the trays out and the big hydro bucket masking a lot of the picture, but I think you get the idea...
 
Cheers!
 
To prune or not to prune: There are many domesticated plants that have shown to respond well to pruning; roses, grapes, fruit trees, blueberry bushes to name just a few.  I know that these are perennials that are pruned year to year, but I would expect the purpose is the same, its just that your doing it much earlier.  Try telling a commercial apple orchard farmer that nature dictates he should not cut back his trees each year and he'll ... probably yell at you a lot or something. 
 
To me pruning is like fertilizer.  Can you grow peppers without it?  Sure.  Can your grow LOTS of peppers without it in the most perfect of environments?  Probably.  Does it help grow lots of peppers if used correctly?  Yup.  There are more "natural" ways to do stuff, and more forced ways to do stuff.  Doesn't really make one way better or worse than another.
 
I LOVE experiments!  And while I wish I had enough peppers to conduct a statistically sound experiment, I think my wife would leave me if I had any more pepper starts in my office than I already do.  But that being said, the experiment I'd love to run is this:
 
Take 5 chinese varieties, and grow 30 (minimum) of each variety
10 of each variety do no pruning at all
10 just top them once or twice
10 prune most of the leaves once or twice (a la Spicy Chicken)
 
Then through the season measure growth rate, height, width, number of primary branches, and most important number of peppers produced.
 
Unfortunately this year I'm already running an experiment on growing container: ole fashion ground, plastic pots, grow bags, and raised beds.
 
damn, so many experiments, so little room in my office to grow pepper starts, or room in my backyard for the adults!
 
I did a "selective pruning" experiment on a couple of TS that I overwintered a few years ago. It was based on a research article I read that showed how removing the sucker leaves from plants would help improve the overall yield of fruit.  The key wasn't to just blindly prune leaves from the plant, but instead prune the "sucker" leaves only.  This was after the plant was “topped” so it would grow outward instead of upward. 
 
The theory of topping is you want a short bushy plant that allows more leaves to “see the sun” instead of a tall plant that essentially spent more energy moving nutrients from the roots to the top of the plant.  If you don’t want to “top” your plant you can also tie down the longer shoots to the side of the plant which helps them grow outward.
 
The experiment was a huge success.  The plants actually had more fruit then leaves and since the plants stalks, fruit and leaves all help in the photosynthesis process the plant never suffered as a result of the pruning.  I started off the plants in a standard earth box under a 400w MH and when it had a good amount of leaves switched over an eye hortilux HPS full spectrum bulb and grew the plants under that light for about 6 weeks before putting it outside.  I essentially could pick a pound of fruit a week off each plant when it was in full season.
 
Happy growing.
 
Peppers only put out pods at the joints, so yes, pruning ultimately increases yield because more branches are produced. I think to prune or not is up to each individual's circumstances. We have a very short growing season here, and I don't have the time to devote to much experimentation, and nor the ideal room or setup for it. These factors, plus the fact that I have plenty of dried pods still, make extreme pruning of very young plants less than ideal to me, for my particular circumstances. If I had more time to devote to it though, I'd be experimenting right along side of you!
 
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