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how many hour below 60F before crisis

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pwb

Its started to get below 60F at nights outside, tonight it could be as cold as 45F. I have them in a greenhouse and its not below 65F normaly, but sometime the power disappears and it could start to get close to outside temp. I have had it down to 55F last week when the power disappears beacuse of the weather. Is it the temp on the plant (air) or the temperature in the soil thats critical?
 
When it gets below 60F regularly then growth will slow, as will ripening, but there is no really critical temperature except one that causes a hard frost which can depend on environmental factors and range anywhere from upper 20's to mid 30's F.  Your local evening news weather forecast will probably issue a frost warning when the conditions get to that point.
 
It's the air temperature that's critical, BUT in a greenhouse you will have the daytime temperatures warming the ground (unless it has an elevated floor off the ground) so that heat is radiated back up into the greenhouse during the night. 
 
It wouldn't surprise me if the plants can survive in there with night time lows a little below freezing outside so long as it gets up to ~50F in the daytime, but at that point the plants will be doing nothing useful except keeping the pods hydrated while they very slowly ripen.  At that point any mature pods would ripen faster indoors due to the higher indoor temperature except any not mature enough might rot, shrivel, or mold before ripening.
 
^  and you probably have slower growth due to that than other people whose temps are higher.  You can't do much about location except build a greenhouse, grow indoors, or move somewhere warmer.  Even so, the closer it gets to 32F the more drastic the growth slowdown becomes.
 
No crisis, IMO.
Flower production stops at some point, but any existing fruit will continue to ripen, just at a slower rate.
 
If you have the room you can get some 55gallon drums, or similar, to hold a lot of water to help cut down on the temperature swings.
 
This is very good news. I did have the impression that it would have to be between 60-100F almost all the time. So my pods will ripe if its not near freezing :-)
 
I have some plants that are pretty confused over here....with night time temperatures going down to freezing on some nights and most of the rest hovering in the mid 30's Fahrenheit, I still have some plants putting out pods! Carolina Reaper,Fatalii's and Butch T crosses in my greenhouse with no heating.
 
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