Thanks all for your comments. Replies follow:
Maybe the soil you have them in is lacking in Potassium. Try finding a potassium fertilizer; there are a ton of them in the $10 range on Ebay. Nice looking plant though, it's a giant!
This is what I feed them once a week:
Stopped feeding them regularly for a few weeks and all the leaves fell off - so went back to the regular once a week feed. Also feed with Seasol (seaweed based feed for roots, etc) once a week too.
I've found my superhots more reluctant to flower, they have a longer season than most anyway but as said: dose them with ferts high in PK.
Yep - as you can see from pic above, K ratio is high.
I would recommend potting up the larger plant and place a thermo barrier between the pots and the stone pavers. If it gets too hot flower production slows way down. They all have their own personality and don't always turn ON the same time regardless of the plant size.
I have 7 Bhuts of which 5 are potted up to a larger pot than what see in this pic. However, of those 5 only one has any peppers on it at the moment - so I couldn't see any reason to pot the other 2 up. They look just as healthy. The pavers don't get hot and they are in the shade by about 9:30 in the morning. As you can see, I have placed the pot inside a bigger pot. This is an experiment to see if protecting the inner pot from the sun helps.
I don't know the light situation where they sit...but some peppers like a little filtered sun or shade late in the day...so either a shade cloth or a spot where they're partially shaded by a tree late in the day might help??? Force blooming for some flowers is done by shortening the photo (sun) period...not sure if its the same with peppers, but afternoon shading may promote this. Since it is a late season producer it might be triggering on light cycle...just a thought. Keep us posted!
They are in full shade by about 9:30 in the morning. Previously, they were sitting forward on the edge of the verandah and they were in the sun until about 10:30 - but the weather has been too hot and they look much better since I put them back out of the sun.
I set up a heavy shade cloth for my other Bhuts - which sits in the sun for most of the day. That has only been up for about 2 weeks so still too early to tell how that will go. But they do look better for it. Will post pics in another post.
What are your daytime temps? If they're in the mid 30'sC and above that will have an effect on flower production.
It has been hot - mid 30's and higher since about Christmas. I know the weather affected these plants last year - but they were very young. And given how well the Habs have gone, I was wondering if it might be something other than the temp that has caused the lack of flowers.
the leaves are very dark green are you sure you havnt over-fertilized them, they will act like that is this is the case, peppers are nitrogen hogs, give them too much and you have a big bushy plant but not flowers or fruit
it happened to me onece i thought i was doing them a favor i was but they where doing me none in return
also do you know if there was sphagnum peat moss in the soil, that can also be a contributing factor
hope this helps
thanks your friend Joe
When I stopped feeding them regularly, the leaves fell off. So, I went back to my previous routine of once a week with the feed pictured above.
I can't see any reference to peat moss on the soil bag, so I have no idea about that...
1. because it's been really hot in Perth, around 100F. Most of my flower buds have dropped off for the chinense or super hots, and plenty of plants never even started flowering new plants that is, plants from last feb/april are podding fine, but nothing from plants sowed in september - annuums still fine though
2, If you've been heavy on ferts, stop, you don't want heaps of nitrogen ferts to flower and pod, you want potassium, so use sulphate of potash or something like that.
edit: I thought your pot size was fine, but it appears to be a smaller pot inside a larger pot? How big is the actual pot the plant is in?
It sure has Pablo. Funny you mention the feb/april plants are going well. My Habs were sown around that time as well - and they are going gang busters. Sounds like we better get ready to start planting seeds again in the next month or so.
So you reckon it is a climate-Bhut specific issue?
yeah if your using a lot of fertilizer, some for now and see what happens, I fertilized my plants a ton last year and they looked great.. really big and bushy, but really not many pods.. until I ran out of fert. towards the end of the summer.. then the last month there were just tons and tons of flowers/pods.. I'd also just switch it to that bigger pot.. if it's in there but your not actually using it.. mine as well use it.. right?
and that is pretty interested with the peat moss.. I just used some, but luckily it was for my mom's tomato plants.. and they are still really young. and it wasn't much at all.. but they will all be going into the ground.. when it eventually gets warm out lol
Fertilising about once a week. The leaves started dropping off when I cut it back from that - so I think I should stick with this. I think that they may start to produce a few more late in the season as you have alluded to.
Thank you everyone for you input. It is most appreciated.
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