A couple folk mentioned topping to prevent wind damage. When I was just using florescent, had the same problem especially with tomato. Adding light and an oscillating fan helped a lot. Makes the stem stronger. Looked at some commercial plants today at the feed store, noticed a lot of them have been topped. Think it might be a way of managing low light?
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Looking for the non-toppers
- Thread starter austin87
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not a topper here. I just let them do their thing. If anything the thread from yesterday or the day before where the poster cut everything below the first major split was interesting. Ive got 4 big reapers and the little branches below the big split will throw flowers, but never produce anything. Might have to start trimming the bottom.
your ingrond plants are toppling or container plants?
i used to stake down my tobacco plants... they are basically umbrellas of leaf tissue, so holding them down is impossible without some work.
in field production they install low trellises that run through the rows. plants grow up through the trellis. no tieing is necessary from what i recall.
field toms have higher trelleses... maby 4' tall, thre wires, and field workers roll out additional lines as the plants grows upwards. i think its called the flordia trellis?
i used to stake down my tobacco plants... they are basically umbrellas of leaf tissue, so holding them down is impossible without some work.
in field production they install low trellises that run through the rows. plants grow up through the trellis. no tieing is necessary from what i recall.
field toms have higher trelleses... maby 4' tall, thre wires, and field workers roll out additional lines as the plants grows upwards. i think its called the flordia trellis?
Malarky said:
This is from the day it got bonchi potted last fall. Its not fancy, but it seems to do the trick
This is it up potted a few days ago getting ready for another season. Its only 3 years old. Hopefully many years to go. I am thinking about just chopping it back and leaving it in this pot next winter. Not sure how big the pot is. Its significantly larger than my 3 gallon pots. Must be classified as a 5 gallon. Bought as a "21 inch pot" for the little woman, later stolen for pepper purposes lol.
My grow season is a bit different from most. Majority of my plants live 3-4 years before they die off or I need the space for a new pepper plant. I try not to top any plants when they're under 6 months old. There are a couple times in the year when the plants just stop producing and seem to go dormant or just put out tiny pods. After a couple years of that nonsense I started to prune them back by about 1/2 original size to encourage new growth. The new branches grow out fast and strong so within 2 months I get rewarded with a good amount of healthy sized pods again.
Disclaimer: I did that to my 5ft. tall bishops hat and its still not growing back out. Over 2 months and still pretty much a 2ft. sickly looking stick. Most likely going to pull it and after amending the soil replace it with one of my Worlds Record Big Jim peppers.
Still a little baby but I got high hopes for it
Disclaimer: I did that to my 5ft. tall bishops hat and its still not growing back out. Over 2 months and still pretty much a 2ft. sickly looking stick. Most likely going to pull it and after amending the soil replace it with one of my Worlds Record Big Jim peppers.
Still a little baby but I got high hopes for it
For first year plants I probably don't top much at all but I do top some. I notice that if you're keeping plants for several years it doesn't matter in the long run, I chop down plants like crazy when I bring them in for the winter...otherwise you risk an aphidpocalypse. If you're only pumping out a season's worth of pods and killing the plant then not topping is a big benefit...although I found that it helps to start indoors a few months early. Extra time maturing means a lot...starting in December or January means you already have a fully mature plant by Spring. If you have too many you might run into space issues and need to top. With plenty of room it shouldn't matter.
tl:dr if you're keeping your plants for years it won't matter, they'll get twisted and gnarled from being chopped, nipped, and pruned constantly
tl:dr if you're keeping your plants for years it won't matter, they'll get twisted and gnarled from being chopped, nipped, and pruned constantly
Louisiana here... toping? Nope. I don't exactly understand it, but I've never had a shortage of peppers on my plants pots or in the ground. Let them grow and feed them right!
I'm loving the input. It seems like since I started a little late this year for my first grow that I might want to NOT top this year. I need my plants to grow and get to flower faster. It seems like topping is a great way to manage height indoors and I've got enough plants to do a side by side if I can find the spaxe
I pinch off the terminal buds. I have found that, for me, it encourages the plant to bush out more without putting a ton of stress on the plant. The vertical growth of the plant slows while the plant fills out tremendously.
see with a nice long grow season like that you could top literally all your plants and see a big return first year...in a short grow season you can forget about it. I think topping is mostly a personal decision, but it does help to experiment with it a bit when you have the time to delay your plant.Bayoubulldog said:
does anyone have any evidence that topping increases yields what so ever? i seriously doubt it has any positive effect on yields.
i get it that folks do it to keep them from falling over? but for yields? how does that make sense? you are setting the plant back to some extent, and just forcing the branching to take place lower down the plant.
i mean pepper plants are not like... douglas fir trees. the apical growth banches on its own without any help.
the pattern i see with non trellised plants like chins or frutenses is growth up like 6 or so nodes, then splitting, then splitting on basically all nodes after that. bushing out to like nipple height getting dense with foliage in the centers. after like 3 months production the center of the plant starts thinning out and new growth comes to the top from the lower fatter nodes via sucker growth. beyond 120 days its just continuous pruning as the growth spills over the sides and touches the ground.
if anyting i imagine productivity would be increased by forcing the plant to grow vertically with a trellis support. this is how i do bell peppers and they can easily hit 6 feet when pruned to 2 stems.
i get it that folks do it to keep them from falling over? but for yields? how does that make sense? you are setting the plant back to some extent, and just forcing the branching to take place lower down the plant.
i mean pepper plants are not like... douglas fir trees. the apical growth banches on its own without any help.
the pattern i see with non trellised plants like chins or frutenses is growth up like 6 or so nodes, then splitting, then splitting on basically all nodes after that. bushing out to like nipple height getting dense with foliage in the centers. after like 3 months production the center of the plant starts thinning out and new growth comes to the top from the lower fatter nodes via sucker growth. beyond 120 days its just continuous pruning as the growth spills over the sides and touches the ground.
if anyting i imagine productivity would be increased by forcing the plant to grow vertically with a trellis support. this is how i do bell peppers and they can easily hit 6 feet when pruned to 2 stems.
Here's one study that shows yields are decreased when plants are topped:
http://www.actahort.org/members/showpdf?booknrarnr=366_36
I wonder if the results would be different if they allowed more than 4 stems to grow.
http://www.actahort.org/members/showpdf?booknrarnr=366_36
I wonder if the results would be different if they allowed more than 4 stems to grow.
I wonder if the results would be different if the study accounted for the fact that peppers are perennials and can produce more in their second and third year regardless of topping and pruning. If you top your plant your yield will be decreased if it doesn't fruit by the end of your grow season. I'm not saying that yield increases with topping, I'm saying that it depends on length of time. The pictures that Let's Try just posted show that topped plants have more leaves. More leaves mean more nodes but they will take longer to develop in a single season than a plant that hasn't been topped. If you overwinter your plant I have noticed that yield doesn't matter the second year, they're all very productive. I've experimented with topping and not topping for several years now. I think a lot of people may have an instant gratification idea about peppers that your plants will explode with berries in their first year either way. Sometimes they do, but you can't even begin to see results until the plants are a few years old. Ones that take longer to branch and bloom because they've been topped might be deemed as having a decreased yield if they never make it to their second year.Big Kahuna said:
The only example I know about in my grows of a plant that didn't produce more in it's second year was a plant we call the "Mortalii" that I grew a few years ago. The mother Mortalii didn't even bloom the second year, but it was a weirdo plant that may have been a little "special" to begin with. That plant was never topped, just pruned heavily when I overwintered it.