Premature terminal buds?

Ohjay · Apr 27, 2015

After having a good initial two months with my new babies I noticed that a couple of my chili plants have developed buds.
Sounds great, right? Well, the issue is I think the buds are of the terminal variety(I hope I use the terminology right).
They seem to be at the top of the stem and I'm afraid that this will kill the potential height of the plants. They are currently roughly 9" high and they can be up to 31" in height.
I have noticed buds on several species but the most prominent ones are on my Bulgarian Carrot plants.

Is this something I should worry about?
Is there something I should do about it?

Here's an image from one of the plants(Bulgarian Carrot):

juanitos · Apr 27, 2015

you can just pinch them off with your fingers if you're worried about it..

Swampy_NZ · Apr 28, 2015

They are not "Terminal". There will be new branch growth among the buds.Wait a few more days and when you see the new growth carefully slice the buds off with a razer until you are ready for buds to develope

Ohjay · Apr 28, 2015

Thank you both for your replies. I feel better about my little babies now.

sirex · Apr 28, 2015

That's pinching off. It encourages vegetative growth instead of flowering growth.

turbo · Apr 28, 2015

Just to add a bit of data to help you decide what to do. Last year I cut the buds off half my young plants and left the buds on the other half as an experiment. In the end there was no noticeable difference between the plants when they were fully grown, both in size, branching, or pod count. This year I'm not bothering to remove early buds.

sirex · Apr 28, 2015

A lot of those flowers are going to fall off anyways. Until the plant figures out what it's doing. At least mine do.

rhm3769 · Apr 28, 2015

I'd let them do their thing.... My experience, most of the first buds either don't survive to flower, don't have pollen.... My first season, I pinched the first few buds off one plant and left them on the other.... End of the season, there was no difference, but the one I pinched had bigger yields later on in the season. The unpinched had smaller yields but had more yields during the season, if that makes sense....

Ohjay · Apr 28, 2015

Thank you all for your input.
I decided to pinch 'em off, we'll see what happens next.

Comptine · Apr 29, 2015

I'm glad you asked this question. I noticed what looked like buds on a few of mine, which was very surprising since mine are only roughly 13-16 cm tall (5-6"). Based on the advice here I think I'll just leave them to it, not bothering to pick them off.