• Do you need help identifying a 🌶?
    Is your plant suffering from an unknown issue? 🤧
    Then ask in Identification and Diagnosis.

Minimum temp for for setting fruit

Jase4224

Jase4224

Hi guys just wandering what is the minimum temp that chinense will set fruit? I have habs, scorps and bhuts.

My first Hab flower fell off I am hoping its normal for the first few to fall off?

Cheers
 
Sorry is that daytime temp or night? Days here in WA are around 27-30 C (around 85F) and down to 13C/55F at night so I would have thought even chinense would set fruit at these temps.
 
Western Australia?
 
Yea, it's normal for the first flowers and/or pods to fall off at some point.  It takes a while for the plant to build up the "making babies" hormones that are required to produce fruit.
 
Your current temps should be great.  85F and a bit of sun should get them going quickly.  
 
Yeah West Oz

I'm not new to growing chillies and tomatoes but I am new to chinense and last year only got a few fruit to set
 
Sounds like my first-year plants.  Most manage to set a few pods before the heat shuts down flowering, but it's never a huge rush.
As the summer heat fades, they produce another round.  Do you get a "Fall Season" there?
 
FWIW, I've found Fatalii varieties to be some of the best Chinense in warm/hot conditions.  I've got a two year old Red Fatalii that produced two strong batches in spring and fall, and even managed to produce a few random pods during the middle of summer.  And a first-year Yellow was easily the best super-hot in the yard.
 
So live in an area that's hot too.. Have you tried shade cloth over your plants in summer to reduce the sun stress and extend your season? Not sure it would work but I might put a couple of plants in the fernery this year and see what happens.

We do have what we call Autumn here where we get weather that is warm but not extreme like summer, that's when I got a few pods last year too. This year my plants will be much bigger with more nodes so hopefully translates to more pods.
 
Just FYI, Americans see WA as your location and assume you are in Washington.  If that were the case, I would have said your grow season is a tad bit late...
 
Jase4224 said:
So live in an area that's hot too.. Have you tried shade cloth over your plants in summer to reduce the sun stress and extend your season?
Click to expand...
 
Yea, they live under a large mesquite tree that provides plenty of mid-day shade.  But when the air temperature is in the high 10x / 4x range, the plants are gonna be stressed no matter what.
 
I do think I'll try shade cloth next year.  The tree's shade is actually too dark for optimal growth.  I try to arrange the plants so that they get some late afternoon sun, but even that is dang bright and hot.  I'm thinking that 60~70% sun, applied all day, will likely work better. 
 
So there's really a fine line between too much sun that prevents fruit set due presumably to stress, and getting enough energy from the sun to fuel fruit set..

I think I'm gonna try the 50% shade cloth and see how that goes. Some plants with and some without will tell me if it really helps or not.
 
Good to know about the yellow fataliis. I got some seeds but chickened out on planting them thinking I'd cook them in my climate. I guess I had better be brave & try soon. I grow in 60-70% shade but I'm in Phoenix metro. My problem is never whether my plants are getting enough sun...

OP's conditions they're reporting are prefect for setting. It is probably just blossom drop from being a young plant.
 
I moved my Trinidad Scorpion plant into a grow tent in my garage. The temps are about 62F at night, and 75F during the day inside the tent, and the plant is producing a ton of pods in there. I have 10 CFL bulbs hanging in there, and it appears to be doing better inside the tent than it did outside.
 
At first I just put it in there to keep it alive long enough over the winter so I could take clone cuttings, but now I'm hesitant to take it out of there at all. I'll have pods all winter long at this rate!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top