Low Stress Training - Just a little comparison

[dogshow]

This season I decided to try a little experiment. Two plants. Both started with seeds kindly sent to me by Greg. Both of these plants , started at the same time and both Chocolate Habs. The LST plant I have kept the pot small. The other I have been giving new shoes as she needs them for growth. 
 
This is the LST Choc Hab from the top
 

 
The same plant from the side - 
 

 
Another view
 

 
And she keep pushing out more pods
 

 
Now for the second plant - 
 
Top View 
 

 
But no pods and a much bigger pot
 

 
And loads of new shoots - so hopefully soon 
 

 
Thanks for looking - Results I hope will follow !
 
Mike 
 

 

[PrimeTime]

So the more productive plant stayed in a small pot the entire time while the slacker was potted up a few times? How "small" is that pot? Any nutrients in either?
 
Nice experiment!
 
Thanks.

 

[dogshow]

So the more productive plant stayed in a small pot the entire time while the slacker was potted up a few times? How "small" is that pot? Any nutrients in either?
 
Nice experiment!
 
Thanks.

 
Hey PrimeTime - The LST pepper was potted up once into the 2 litre pot , and the Slacker has been potted up three times - She is now in a 10 litre pot. Both have been having just a basic tomato food about once a week but nothing else. 

 

[PrimeTime]

Good job. Some people can still run accurate experiments....refreshing

 

[KingLeerUK]

To make the experiment "more accurate" you would need a much larger sample size.
 
150 total plants, all sourced from the same seed set (ideally the seed set comes from the pods of one plant, harvested at the same time)
   50 plants in LST
   50 plants in staged up potting
   50 plants started in largest final pot size (no re-potting, considered closest to "control")
 
With only two plants, one of each treatment and no control then the result, while interesting, could be attributed to other factors.  Possibly the LST plant is just more robust, the multi-stage potted up plant could have been unnecessarily shocked during transplant, etc.
 

 

[dogshow]

To make the experiment "more accurate" you would need a much larger sample size.
 
150 total plants, all sourced from the same seed set (ideally the seed set comes from the pods of one plant, harvested at the same time)
   50 plants in LST
   50 plants in staged up potting
   50 plants started in largest final pot size (no re-potting, considered closest to "control")
 
With only two plants, one of each treatment and no control then the result, while interesting, could be attributed to other factors.  Possibly the LST plant is just more robust, the multi-stage potted up plant could have been unnecessarily shocked during transplant, etc.
 

 
Hey Man - I couldn't agree with you more - This is definitely not a noteworthy experiment. I can only dream of a grow of that size and trust me - if I had a grow that size, as much as I love science - There is no way in hell I'd be playing around with LST!!!
This was just a "little" fun I'm having on my back balcony and I'm just stoked to have some pods - Thanks for your comments

 

[Jetchuka]

To the original poster, i don't think this is the case with your plant (because your plant is miniaturized but still thriving), but pepper plants will put out what i call "survival pods" when they are under less-than-ideal conditions. Eventually they stop growing and devote all remaining energy to flowers and fruit. But they can be tricked into growing and podding a bit more by giving them regular nutrition.
 

 
^^ Here's a throw-away Chinense and Annuum sharing a 16oz solo cup, with a small fistful of dirt. Less than two hours of sun a day and they've been this way since June. I water them every day, give them liquid nutes every couple of weeks. The annuum keeps putting out flowers and pods but drops most of them early, the pod above is the biggest one so far. Next year I may put leftover starts like these into 1 or 2 gallon containers so i can get some production out of them, and save on space and potting mix $$.
 
Pepper plants are tough, and try their mightiest to survive and propagate.
 
Edit, almost forgot: Your mini plant looks like the perfect bonsai candidate, heck it kind of already is a bonsai .

 

[dogshow]

To the original poster, i don't think this is the case with your plant (because your plant is miniaturized but still thriving), but pepper plants will put out what i call "survival pods" when they are under less-than-ideal conditions. Eventually they stop growing and devote all remaining energy to flowers and fruit. But they can be tricked into growing and podding a bit more by giving them regular nutrition.
 

 
^^ Here's a throw-away Chinense and Annuum sharing a 16oz solo cup, with a small fistful of dirt. Less than two hours of sun a day and they've been this way since June. I water them every day, give them liquid nutes every couple of weeks. The annuum keeps putting out flowers and pods but drops most of them early, the pod above is the biggest one so far. Next year I may put leftover starts like these into 1 or 2 gallon containers so i can get some production out of them, and save on space and potting mix $$.
 
Pepper plants are tough, and try their mightiest to survive and propagate.
 
Edit, almost forgot: Your mini plant looks like the perfect bonsai candidate, heck it kind of already is a bonsai .

 
Hey Jetchucka
 Thanks for stopping by - In about eight weeks the season will be well and truly done for me, so I'm not holding out much hope of the bigger plant having pods that will mature  . I've been lucky that I haven't seen much flower drop - Hopefully the little guy will do me proud when I overwinter him - I plan on cutting him back and if he behaves, will be the perfect candidate for Bonchi.

 

[Dave2000]

I'm not sure what you have there but the first plant is not a pure chocolate hab. 
 
To have a successful experiment you must first attain a good yield to be able to decide the factors were optimal, otherwise stress and undersized pot can't be evaluated because you are only seeing the effects while a plant is little, not when one is highest producing towards the end of the season when it is quite large.
 
In the larger pot it is likely you have too much raw brown material that is leeching away nutrients.  The only thing I can really take from the experiment is what happens when two plants are in pots too small to support a season of good growth and have different soil composition and fertilizer density.
 
However the shape of both plants is very strange, even for a pruned plant.  I don't think they are even the same genetically, that probably neither are Chocolate Habs but they aren't the same as each other either.
 
Both of these plants are highly stressed and very small to already have full sized pods.   You first need to get a good yield and then change a variable to see if it helps or hurts the established good yield, factoring not for how many pods at some particular moment but pods brought to maturity by end of season.

 

[Dave2000]

To put some perspective on my last post, consider the following Chocolate Habanero Jamaican. 

It has no stress training besides a low volume fan on it when it was started inside, then transferred from a solo cup sized container into the ground in mid-May. 

That's all.
 
I'll be harvesting over 200 ripe pods off that one in the next few days, then a few hundred more in about a month and so on until the first hard frost.

I suppose my point is, I don't see the usefulness of trying to grow a few more peppers in the least amount of soil possible unless there's some special circumstance, like doing so in outer space where the available grow area, soil availability and weight are all concerns.
 

 

[dogshow]

Seriously good going there Dave ! That plant is rockin' out - I'm grateful for your advice and appreciate your comments. I'm really enjoying just messing around, having some fun in the process and sharing my experience - Looking forward to having some pods and maybe next season I'll be a bit more jacked up. 
All the best 
 
Mike 

 

[frosty]

To make the experiment "more accurate" you would need a much larger sample size.
 
150 total plants, all sourced from the same seed set (ideally the seed set comes from the pods of one plant, harvested at the same time)
   50 plants in LST
   50 plants in staged up potting
   50 plants started in largest final pot size (no re-potting, considered closest to "control")
 
With only two plants, one of each treatment and no control then the result, while interesting, could be attributed to other factors.  Possibly the LST plant is just more robust, the multi-stage potted up plant could have been unnecessarily shocked during transplant, etc.
 

The 50 is based on what distribution? Binomial or T? What was your target p-value and expected difference? How does having different potting regiments make it a control group?

I take a more meta perspective on stuff like this. A guy posts his small experiment another posts his and eventually a trend develops or it doesn't. If it doesn't then probably there is nothing to it.

I'm glad people post these experiments. Everyone knows it isn't conclusive.

 

[Robisburning]

Frosty, I couldn't agree more.  A lot of people online, generally, are in a bad habit of offering an uninformed opinion in the form of an expert opinion.  Many posts could be vastly improved by explaining the underlying reasoning or referencing a source.
 
The other commonly occuring answer to questions are there are too many variables.
 
Typical question: How many hot peppers might I pick off my Caribbean Red Habanero
Useless answer: It depends on soil temp, humidity, sunlight hours etc etc. 
 
Of course it does but if someone gave you the soil temp, sunlight hours, humidity and then said how many peppers would it really help with an answer or do you just not know.
 
A more useful answer: I grew 3 last year and the worst one produced 25 andthe best one produced 125. They all went in the ground at the same time so I am not sure why one was so much more productive.
 
Even though it is a broad range it is a more useful answer then explaining the variables.  In fact there are an almost infinite number of variables but there are a finite number of peppers that will be produced.
 
Dogshow did an experiment and produced a result which some people might find useful.  I did.

 

[KingLeerUK]

My post was not meant to be negative criticism or to call out a member on their statement, merely to point out that with a sample size of exactly 1 of each population that the "experiment" could have any number of actual influences other than the one being chosen as the observed factor.
 
My stated sample size of 50 is purely arbitrary, but would nonetheless provide more data upon which to draw conclusions than a 1 vs 1.

 

[Robisburning]

Do you think growing 150 peppers of the same variety is practical?  Would you be willing to do the next stage with the experiement?

 

[KingLeerUK]

I am growing over 100 peppers this year, but not all of the same variety; and it's all I have space for.  The largest single group I have are 30 Trinidad Scorpions from 3 different seed stocks and my season is 1/2 over.
 
I don't understand why I'm being called out personally for pointing out the questionable scientific basis of the original post - but certainly not in an overly critical or condescending way.
 
Making the choice to grow 150 or 1000 or 10,000 peppers of the same variety with different conditions for the sub-groups of the population for experimentation purposes wouldn't be a choice made for practicality; it would be done for the scientific results of the endevour.
 
Building the LHC was hardly practical, but necessary to achieve results.

 

[Robisburning]

I thought the image you used was condesending implying essentially that showdog was "trying science". Regardless my posts certainly aren't personal, I simply think the questions raised by frosty are valid.  I think we have both said our part and I am happy to leave it as it stands and look forward to sharing hot pepper thoughts with you again in future.

 

[PrimeTime]

I simply meant it was done better than a lot of tests ive seen people post. 

 

[frosty]

Sometimes stuff comes off as agressive when it isn't meant to be. Had we been sitting together it would have been obvious that I meant it in the most light hearted way.

 

[dogshow]

A quick update on the Low Stress Training - So it turns out I'm not sure what variety I've got here but that is for another thread
 
She certainly is coming along 
 

 
Here she is again - As you can see - Pods ripening up now 
 

 
Pod Porn 
 

 
And a few more 
 

 

 
Overall - very happy with it 
 

 
Thanks for stopping by 
 
Mike W