Just how fast (or slow) do chillies grow?

[Calamari Kid]

Hi all. I can't help but notice that despite identical growing conditions, my habanero and reaper "plants" are *MUCH* smaller than my datils and hawks' claws. Granted, the hawks' claws are annums, so their initial grow pattern is different. But I am talking about 3 inches on the datils which as far as I know are chinense, vs about an inch on the habanero and the reaper.
 
Is this normal or have I got 2 dud seeds from 2 separate sources at the same time?
 
 
N.B. The nagas are just as small, but they are in soil so not quite the same.

 

[Comptine]

Nah, chinenses just grow super slow. That's why they are normally started pretty early, to accommodate the long growing season. 

 

[Calamari Kid]

Cheers. I did think that the Datils looked rather annumy despite being classified as chinense.  Cool, thank you very much

 

[Noah Yates]

Yeah, datils are exceptionally lanky chinenses!  

 

[Calamari Kid]

Yeah, datils are exceptionally lanky chinenses!  

Ahhh... that explains. Thank you.

 

[LordHill]

Had to explain that to a coworker when I was trying to get him to start his superhots in February.. heading into May, he now understands

 

[Calamari Kid]

Had to explain that to a coworker when I was trying to get him to start his superhots in February.. heading into May, he now understands

Those pesky princesses need the warmth too! The nagas that I started at the beginning of the year are still so small that I am starting to wonder if they have some mutation that had made them dwarfs!

 

[LordHill]

Warm is good. Heat mat at 85ish does them wonders.

 

[aamartin77]

Warm is good. Heat mat at 85ish does them wonders.

I have a few plants that have been growing for about a month, maybe a little more, and they are still puny. They are sitting on a heat mat, but I turned it off because I almost killed the sprouts early on when it got into the mid 90s. They are currently sitting in my garage. Do you think it would increase their growth rate if I were to turn the heat mat back on? My only concern is that I'll come home one day to find all my plants slumped over again.

 

[alkhall]

Lighting will provide a good amount of heat.
 
Using my infrared laser thermometer, I see that my six-lamp T5HO industrial fixtures at approximately six inches from my plants have the temperature at between 89°F and 95°F as measured on the leaf surface.

 

[FROG DOG]

they are creepy slow for the first month or two but once they hit their growth spurt they takeoff!!

 

[Vicious Vex]

Lighting will provide a good amount of heat.
 
Using my infrared laser thermometer, I see that my six-lamp T5HO industrial fixtures at approximately six inches from my plants have the temperature at between 89°F and 95°F as measured on the leaf surface.

 
My soil temps using a soil thermometer and I was getting core readings around 90 degrees after the plants had been bottom watered.   First time I didn't need to use a heat mat to get the seeds to germinate.  I'm having really good success using just the T5HO 4-Bulb lighting system.  

 

[Spicy Mushroom]

My datils (some of my worst germination rates) have been lanky and slow growing compared to my other Chinense. My various habs have outperformed my datils. so we had a different experience. The fact your datils are growing as well as your Annuum I would chalk up to individual plant genetics. As others said, Chinense just take longer...usually.