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container Question about Container Size & Peppers

So From What I have heard if you keep pepper plants in small containers the peppers will grow to be small, Not the plant but the peppers will ripen very small, is this true and From what a guy at the store told me is that if you keep the soil very rich in nutrients the peppers will grow to a regular size? anyone Know more information on this, Can Peppers grow to big size in small containers? Similar to what a Bonsai pepper plant would be?
 
I grew a fullsize 6" mini sweet pepper in a 20oz cup with holes in it.

The plant also had only 2-3 leaves on it and was like 9" tall, I picked the rest of the leaves off when the pepper got really big.

It was completely root bound, and was holding on for life, but the experiment worked.

I'm going to try it again with a few rare varieties to get some pure seed stock from them.
 
"is this true and From what a guy at the store told me is that if you keep the soil very rich in nutrients the peppers will grow to a regular size?"

A larger container will give you a bigger plant and yield.

I grow nice sized jalapeno plants in a 2 gal pot and even 1 gal. Large plants in smaller containers may need more trellising to support the fruit. use a complete fertilizer very low strength every watering.
 
1/15th of a cubic foot of growing medium (~115 cubic inches for roots):
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Were those roots trimmed? or original medium it grew in?

Looks like it was grown in the 1/15th of a cuft of grow medium. One CuFt of grow medium will fill 10- #1 nursery pots. That plant was grown in a about half of a gal of mix.

Very nice!!!
 
Oh Wow so I Guess it could be done, and Im asking because I want To start a Bonsai Pepper but not sure if it can be made, and I met The Guy at the store and we had a conversation about peppers, He doesn't work there but he said he has done it, I have a Manzano Plant with a Nice Thick Stem and wanted to see if I can maybe trim the Roots and train the branches
 
Look at the guy from Italy or Spain had that giant tied up pepper with over a hundred pods in a tiny pot.

If somebody could post that picture I believe the small container fallacy has been busted.
 
My mother in law last year grew 3 jalepenos right next to each other in a 4" deep wall container. They grew bigger than mine which were in 5 gallon equivallent buckets. I'm sure after a certain point you will get bigger plants and yields but smaller cointainers will still grow a good size plant if treated properly.
 
Were those roots trimmed? or original medium it grew in?

Hi Jester,

this plant was started as an experimental tissue clone - I take one leaf from my best plant that does best in Zone 6a and cut it into 1mm x 1mm squares. Then it goes into a special agar jar called a "Unicorn" which is sterilized and treated with NAA and a couple plant-derived hormones. This tricks the cells into entering undifferentiated cell growth and becomes a callous mass, much like the callous soft cells you see when you root a clone by cutting right before it shoots out roots. Once that happens, I treat with auxin and another plant-derived hormone is very low levels (parts per billion). It becomes a little plantlet. Once it has two tiny sets of leaves, I drop it in an Oasis or pH adjusted rockwool cube (1.25"). When it roots into that, I just drop it into the bag/tube filled tightly with soilless media and begin my feeding regimen (I make my own nutrients). Things move very quickly from there. The plant shown in the picture is about 12 weeks old now.

So, it is the original "container" it was planted into. I find that this method of propagation is really good for peppers and I'm still perfecting it. Sometimes the seeds aren't always what they are labeled and since many hot peppers started life as hybrids, you can plant a seed from an outdoor crop and not get the same results. By this method I don't worry about genetic drift or passing along things like bacterial spot, and it's really fast. Took me a while how to figure it out though.

Since the sides of the bag/tube are so porous, the tips of the roots will poke through a little bit, but get air pruned. I can even stack the rows of tubes only an inch apart and they won't grow into each other so I can move them around easily. Also run a capillary fabric underneath them so that everything gets watered very evenly (soilless mix has high capillarity).

From what I've seen, you can grow any size plant in tiny containers as long as you give the roots no excuse to go anywhere else looking for water and nutrients. Several years ago I grew a 6' tall sunflower with a 12" head out of 2.5" of growing media (soilless) just to prove it could be done - it had to be supported in three places so it wouldn't fall over since there was only 100 cubic inches of "dirt".

You can do this method with seeds as well, but I find the plants propagated by tissue culture are a little bit more stout, though the seed-started versions still look insane. I have a couple from experimental seed in tubes I can post if you like that are about 11 weeks from germination right now.

Here's some pics of the roots coming through in a couple tubes. Last one is of some Butch-T's forming (hooray!)

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If you look on the floor - everytime I move them, flowers fall off. I don't usually let the flowers stay on/get pollinated indoors since I'm growing these for clone stock, but I REALLY wanted to test my indoor Butch-T's against the outdoor counterparts.
 
Awesome I'm on the yahoo "hometissueculture" message list, I get updates everyday.

I have a few plants that I want to tissue culture, and a few rare type peppers I wanted to culture, because I only have 3-4 seeds of each.

I was pricing out parts that I needed and wanted to get all my agar and some tubes and solution to get started but I was a bit lost.


Farmerguy I will message you about it. I would love to learn more
 
this plant was started as an experimental tissue clone
This is where my jaw started to drop. Good info and beautiful plant. I had a good convo one day with busamadman who is also in PA and does tissue cloning. Ever have the desire to teach someone I will bring a case of beer over and a brace for my head so it doesn't blow up.
 
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