plant Ghost pepper plant moved inside

[DakotaG44]

I started this in the yard last spring. It grew about 12-18” tall with no fruit. I brought it inside in October and turned it down. It’s been in this greenhouse since. Growing like crazy, producing flowers, but no fruit. I fertilized it 19 days ago. Reduced the light from 16 hours to 8 about a week ago. I see no change. Any thoughts on how to get this to fruit?
Thanks much

 

[DakotaG44]

I “pruned” it down and fertilized about “10” days ago. Sorry for the errors.

 

[HellfireFarm]

You don't get pollinators inside - get a small brush and touch it to all the flowers to pollinate by hand.

18" seems a bit short, don't know what your growing season is - but ghosts take a long time to produce fruit and the first flowers usually don't.

 

[DakotaG44]

Thanks for the response. How much light do they need?

 

[CaneDog]

My ghost pepper that I started and grew inside over the winter got about 15-16 hours of light per day and produced okay. I agree with Hellfire that it can take a while and early flowers often don't set peppers. I wouldn't change the light to less than you had before when it was growing well.

 

[DakotaG44]

Thank you for your responses. How about pruning it back again? In the 5 months I’ve had it inside its grown quite a bit. It’s pretty close to getting out of hand.

 

[BlackFatalii]

Since you say it is producing flowers but no fruit, you might want to check whether any of these apply in this case:

Flower drop probable causes:

1. Day temp too high >95F
2. Night temp too low <65F or too high >85F
3. Too much nitrogen fertilizer
4. Too much water
5. Low light levels (reduces fertility).
6. Very low humidity (reduces fertility)
7. Poor air circulation (air circulation contributes to pollination).
8. Lack of pollinating insects.
9. Size of pot
10. Too much mineral in feedwater.
11. Too much grower attention/anxiety.

I think it is fine if you need to trim the plant back a little bit to keep it from outgrowing the little tent you have it in, but I would just be careful not to go too crazy with that. Pruning back pepper plants can stimulate more foliage growth, and it sounds like you really want the plant to devote its energy to producing fruit rather than growing more leaves and branches right now. So I would trim with care, if at all.

 

[CaneDog]

Proper pruning indoors isn't necessarily a simple matter, particularly once a plant has put on size like that. It would be hard to prune it properly without slowing initial production. Pruning it back only a short distance in many places can result in undesirable growth patterns. The bottom line is that proper pruning takes experience to be able to judge the variables.

I control plant size indoors by keeping the containers smaller and keeping the lighting intense enough that the plant isn't growing into the light, but is staying compact. I don't get huge harvests that way, but I can grow multiple plants and get modest production. I don't know what your goals are, but you might be better off just keeping it happy and healthy until it's time for plant out locally and having a big healthy plant going into the growing season.