If you do not pinch off flowers, talk to me

Roguejim

Roguejim

This is a question for anyone starting their seedlings under indoor lights before ultimately planting them outdoors, who does not pinch off flowers early in their plant's growth cycle.  I've already read the arguments for pinching off flowers, so please don't repeat them again here. 
 
I would just like the non-pinchers to tell me/us about their experiences with plant growth, pod count, etc...
 
Again, this is for plants started under lights that begin to flower early on, before plant out.  Thanks.

My particular lights are T8 fluoros...
 
[SIZE=10.5pt]My non pinching experience was planted seeds in January 2009, they started flowering indoors beginning of April and were about 8-10 inches tall I put them outside in the ground early May. They grew to 12-14 inches and gave me 20-30 pods per plant. I had over 100 plants and all the same, small plants and few pods. I never did it again but you don’t want to hear about that so end of my story. Good luck.[/SIZE]
 
I've went both ways on this.. I found most of the time your flowers will drop indoor untill you have a nice root ball and some bad ass lights any way... Now in my experiance they slow way back on growing once they set pods because they focus on the fruit not growing any more. So its up to you but the bigger the plant the more pods your going to get. In other words if your not using something like a thousand watt hid i wouldn't worry about it because your flowers will prolly drop any way untill they get outside unless you know some magic trick i don't. Also I want to add some plants require more light than others to set pods. Example my tepin x lemon drop and naga morich set pods under a 400 watt hid while my 1 year old reapers (that have never seen the light of day) drop flowers daily. There are other variables too like the plants age... If its a chinense its prolly not going to let you pick fruit till around 6 months any way. Idk... do as you please. I don't pick em off any more cause its a waste of time to me. Now i had plants set a few pods this summer under hid but it was only one or 2 at a time. Idk what kind of lights your using so your situation might end up different than mine.

Just my 2 cents
Mike
 
In the past I would not pinch the flowers early in the season and I would have small plants.  Now that I do pinch the flowers, I tend to have much larger plants.  Obviously my prowess as a gardener has progressed over time as well.  Basically, as you no doubt have read, there is something to be said for forcing the plant gain maturity before you allow it to become sexually active :dance: ;)
 
But then again... do you really want 40x    5 foot tall 5 foot wide plants?!  -----of super-hots?!     Let me tell you, now I know where the member got his name from because that is a pepper problem.
 
I rarely pinch flowers...and never once the plant has forked and forked again. I usually have no problem getting the plants pretty big before the first buds appear. If you are on point with pot ups and they don't get root bound they'll keep focus on up and down instead of pods. Once a plant reaches its growth potential in it's environment it will change over to production. So long story short...keep them from getting root bound and you shouldn't have to sweat pinching buds. 
 
Once the plants are in their permanent positions I let them go... be it in the ground, a raised bed, or a large pot.  At that stage my plants will be between 8 and 17 inches tall as measured from the soil surface.
 
Noah Yates said:
 
But then again... do you really want 40x    5 foot tall 5 foot wide plants?!  -----of super-hots?!     Let me tell you, now I know where the member got his name from because that is a pepper problem.
Click to expand...
I do.. lol.. i had 20 like that last year with 60 plus other small plants. This year I'm gunning for 60 big ones and the 20 monster overwintered ones.
 
instead of pinching i plan to make some HEAD CUT this spring to bring on new branches and more wood and leaves to have bigger plant.. i expect that have flower a bit later but much more flowers
 
Hammerfall said:
instead of pinching i plan to make some HEAD CUT this spring to bring on new branches and more wood and leaves to have bigger plant.. i expect that have flower a bit later but much more flowers
Click to expand...
Yup! Cut them off at the first y and you'll get a bush.
 
I never pinch flowers. If they plant is too small to grow a pepper, it usually won't. They keep growing the stem even with the pepper, so it's not a real issue.
 
If you have multiple plants of the same variety then conduct an experiment where you pinch the flowers of one and leave the other untouched. 
 
Also...  I find that the chinenses usually start putting out flowers much later than the other species.  So its not so much of a problem with super-hots.  Its the annums and the rest which I have known to attempt reproduction too* early (they also tend to grow faster.)
 
That is part of why I stagger the planting of chinenses and the rest.
 
There is also something to be said for letting the power of numbers work for you.  If you purposefully stunt a larger number of plants that were planted early enough to let them get an optimum number of days under them (through letting them become rootbound) and plant those stunted plants in proper conditions early in the season then they will mature to about 3 feet by 3 feet. with peppers abound.  This is somewhat advantageous becuase these plants do not have to be staked, are less likely to be blown over by a storm as 5+ foot plants are... and the power of numbers will yield more peppers than you can pick :party: ---provided you have the space to accomodate them.  I plan to do precisely this with my expiremental grow featured in this seasons grow log.
 
Heck I'm overwintering 20 plus peppers under cheap 2x4 fluorescent lights. I'm to lazy to pinch off all the flowers, so I leave them. Most just fall off after a while, but one flowers turned into a 1 1/2 inch pepper lol. Let them flower, it gives the pepper plant something to do in the winter months :D
 
I germinate a little later to minimize the time indoors and haven't had plants flower much while indoors.  I'm generally hardening off relatively small seedlings ( 3 or 4 sets of true leaves at most) beginning of March.  We generally have most of the cold weather behind us by then but I do have to be on my toes watching the weather.
 
This year could be different - coldest winter I remember here in the Florida Panhandle.
 
Bob 
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top