Paprika For Everyone

About the Grow:

The (hydro) spice must flow

This year I am starting Pepper Joe’s Leutschauer indoors and transitioning them outdoors

The entire grow will be using hydroponics

Once finished I will produce several lifetime's worth of Paprika, also cornering the market

I'm starting 10 seeds and will do a pheno-hunt in my indoor tent for a mother plant

Once the mother is established I will do about 10 clones and transfer them outdoors

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Stages of Growing:

Seed starting
Solo cups
5 gallon bucket
55 gallon drum (outdoor)

I'll document these methods in following posts

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About Me:

I'm not exactly a master grower but I have successfully created crosses and done quite a bit of pepper growing in the past

I can't handle any heat anymore, which has limited me to extremely boring sweet peppers in a traditional outdoor garden

After stumbling on the idea of growing some paprika peppers I decided to dust off the hydroponic equipment and give it a go

Thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing my experience with this project

 

[Hydronerd]

I have switched to Deep Water Culture (DWC), I added an air pump and 3 stones. The air pump is relatively quiet and about as loud as a fan

My setup is a little weird, the air pump I'm using has 2 outlets that have to be "bridged" together. I'm also only using what I have on hand

So a bridge to a check valve, which prevents backflow, then to a 3 gang distribution valve

For the stones themselves I have round aquarium stones

So far the setup has been very little trouble. Install took very little time. I haven't had to do a major nutrient change yet but as far as access for trimming and photos it's been great

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Unfortunately the mother is looking...soggy

The mother was 1 of 3 plants up-potted into a 5 gallon setup. It was looking very yellow and dropping leaves and small peppers so I upped the nutrient level a bit. After a few days of continuing to look wilted I swapped it with a successful King of the North plant

It's continuing to look fairly wilted, but has several large fruits. Not too much more I can do for it, I have 2 backups that are dying to get into a larger container so I'm not too worried

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The mother has some nice fruit developing. They are pleasantly shaped like a traditional pepper and about a medium size. Not a ton of flowers but it's still the first round. I'm hoping to have these fruiting for as long as possible.

 

[Hydronerd]

Quick update, I decided to do a little Low Stress Training (LST)

LST promotes airflow, and uses tie downs to spread open the canopy. It can be a bit of work, however peppers don't grow as fast as other types of plants that use this technique

I also organized and updated the air pump. The only way I could get the setup to work is to slightly close the valve next to the valve that I had to split (3 gang valve and 4 plants)

Fruits are developing nicely, very even distribution