pics Selective pruning to increase crop experiment w/pics

[Bleash]

This is exactly the kind of experiment that I enjoy.

It does make for some butt ugly plants... but the results seem interesting.

The only drawback so far has been the fact that the first couple of fuits after the pruning seem not to grow to normal size.
Its not that bad if you can "force" a plant to bud earlier and more than it would normaly do.

Bleash

 

[LGHT]

I didn't have time to post pics last week, but here is an update. The first pics that had early fruit did ripen and most of them where very small and had no heat, but I did get a few medium sized peppers that had a good heat and about med sized.

Not sure if it was a result of the latest hot / cold temps I've had recently or not, but I did notice about a 10% flower drop as well. Seems like the plant quickly grows back more flowers though.

There has been a lot of leaf growth in the last few weeks and I decided to just let them continue to grow. I had a little bit of rain Sunday and some more last night so hopefully the hot / cold weather isn't causing the decreased size of the peppers and flower drop, but it's still too early to tell, plus cold wind / rain could also be a cause. I do have a ton of flower and more fruit so I'm anxious to see if the fruit matures or not.

I haven't given the plant any ferts that are high in potassium to increase fruiting, but I will be brewing up a fresh batch of worm tea this weekend and will be foilar feeding them Friday morning as well and I'll try and post more pics if it's not wet and raining later this week.

 

[richoso12]

I also will be following this thread. Good to see someone trying different methods for the same end results. Save the planet... it's the only one with peppers.

 

[Eephus Man]

I haven't given the plant any ferts that are high in potassium to increase fruiting, but I will be brewing up a fresh batch of worm tea this weekend and will be foilar feeding them Friday morning as well and I'll try and post more pics if it's not wet and raining later this week.

lol. Sorry, just struck me as funny. You go LGHT! Can't wait to hear/see more results.

 

[Alphaeon]

Interesting thread... missed this before. Good to see that Chinense do well in the Earthbox.

I am planning on growing Biker Billys and maybe Serronas or 1 Chinense in a type of earthbox.


Will be watching and learning... thanks for taking the time to keep this thread

 

[LGHT]

Well the earth box concept works for me because I don't have dirt to plant anything in and it helps not having to water so often. However the 2 TS plants I have in out grew that earth box in no time. This year I picked up a 30 gallon container, some PVC, and converted it into my own "earth box". Since it's about 40% larger it should be more than enough for 2 plants. The container is about the same in width it's just a lot thicker and taller. Hopefully they won't grow out of this new container so easily. Not sure why they haven't made any bigger earth boxes yet. I can't imagine planting 6 plants as suggested..

 

[nitwit]

so you were trying the pruning technique to see if yield can be increased.
fair enough, we all hope to see and find out about that also.
maybe you would consider a side by side experiment?
you have already two similar test subjects conveniently close to each other

{"My one and only goal is of course MAXIMUM YIELD so i'm always looking for the next scientific approach to increasing my overall output."}


maybe pick one to let grow with the constant trims and the other to go 'au natural'
but, it is your deal, you might consider a meter of flavor and size and heat levels also if you could just find the well matched test subjects?

not that anyone else on here would want to learn about those things

 

[franzb69]

My problem with my plants when they do get pretty productive, the pods ripen earlier and i end up with smaller pods.

 

[LGHT]

maybe pick one to let grow with the constant trims and the other to go 'au natural'

Yeah I thought about doing 1 plant and not the other, but because they share the same container and soil I didn't think it would be a good controlled environment, plus if I where allowing one plant to focus on leaves and not flowers, I would then need to change the fertilizers on one and not the other and also prune flowers so it can focus on flowering then when nice and full fruiting.

 

[LGHT]

My problem with my plants when they do get pretty productive, the pods ripen earlier and i end up with smaller pods.

Well from what I've read early ripening and small fruit may be caused by cold weather conditions. I know last year when I got an early start on my seeds I had plants outside by early april. Although it was hot during that time the weather took a turn and got pretty cold about 4 weeks later. As a result those fruit that set during that time didn't have enough heat and sun and I ended up with a few small heatless pods.

That's the same thing that's happening this year as I've had rain last week and again earlier this week. Once the weather gets cold all of a sudden the fruit starts to ripen too soon and I end up with tiny fruit. However the ones that set a week later are normal size. I guess I won't really know until I get into the summer temps and the rain passes.

 

[Pepper Boys]

Can't see the pics for some reason.... DAMN....

 

[SuperHot]

Well, mine go out next week…I lost almost 100 plants because I jumped the gun one week too early last season. I've already started pruning thereby removing only the largest leaves i.e. "sucker leaves". The real pruning starts when they adjust to the outside and transplanted into their new homes.

I have about 550 superhots growing now and with so many accidents happen such as lost of leaves, broken stem and ECT. Of those I'll bring back about 70% to a prosperous healthy life. It's interesting to see how close to the brink of death they can be and then make a full recovery. They're an extremely durable plant!!

I'll be checking in weekly and as soon as I go full swing with my pruning regiment there'll be pics to follow.

 

[LGHT]

I haven't had time to get pics, but I'll try to post some tomorrow afternoon (lower resolution to speed up the page loads). The plants have put on a lot of small leaves and looks a lot more lush, but I had a good amount of flower drop in the last week or so as I had the previous 2 weeks. Still think it's related to the cold weather as the temps are still high 60's in the day and low 50's at night. I also had to deal with a horrible wind storm the last week which didn't help. Still too early in the experiment to determine if it's making a lot of difference, but I did pick about 10 medium sized peppers, 2-3 large ones all with great heat. I did pull 5 ripe dwarfs that had 0 heat and were smaller than a dime which leads me to believe it's still too good for the plant to really produce as it could.

The plants get a bi-weekly foilar feeding of 1-3-2 and worm tea the weekend they don't get ferts.

I noticed about 5-10 medium sized ripe peppers and a lot of medium sized green peppers so it seems to be picking up as the temps warm up a bit and hopefully the excessive flower drop will start to decrease now that I've had more than a week without rain and cold weather.

 

[LGHT]

Well, mine go out next week…I lost almost 100 plants because I jumped the gun one week too early last season. I've already started pruning thereby removing only the largest leaves i.e. "sucker leaves". The real pruning starts when they adjust to the outside and transplanted into their new homes.

I have about 550 superhots growing now and with so many accidents happen such as lost of leaves, broken stem and ECT. Of those I'll bring back about 70% to a prosperous healthy life. It's interesting to see how close to the brink of death they can be and then make a full recovery. They're an extremely durable plant!!

I'll be checking in weekly and as soon as I go full swing with my pruning regiment there'll be pics to follow.

Wow where do you find the time to tend to that many plants. Looking forward to seeing some side by side results. I think I'm going to start with a few controlled plants next year to see if I get better results or not.

 

[nitwit]

it is too bad no one will/can try a side by side experiment with
the prune the heck out of the leaves next to
the just let grow out as it wants

my strikes of biker billies went no go after the hot dry wind got them
last week, i guess i will try again

 

[Bleash]

it is too bad no one will/can try a side by side experiment with
the prune the heck out of the leaves next to
the just let grow out as it wants

I have 2 T. Scorpions growing.

If none of my frieds decides to adopt one then I might try and do this "side by side" experiment.

Bleash

 

[LGHT]

I have 2 T. Scorpions growing.

If none of my frieds decides to adopt one then I might try and do this "side by side" experiment.

Bleash

That would be great. The only setback would be the plant should be fully grown and already well into it's fruit production stage. The article I read indicated that the plants where 3' tall and on it's 2nd fruit cycle.

 

[LGHT]

Here are the latest pics. If you compare them to the first pics they have a lot more small leaves. If a leaf gets bigger than the size of a half dollar it gets pruned ASAP.

It's hard to tell from the pics, but the plants now about 50-60 fruit between the 2 of them. I did pick some dwarfs last week, but these all seem to be at least medium sized so far and a few very large ones.

Hopefully now that the recent rains and winds have passed I will end up with 100+ fruit on the plant at stop dropping flowers.

 

[Bleash]

I probably already said this...

Your plant is sooooooo ugly!!!

Anyway to the point, you convinced me.

Since my T. Scorps are too small for the experiment I'm gonna try it with a Fatalii that last year gave me less than 3 pods.

I'm just gonna wait until mid August to let her gain some strength and them I'm gonna go gung ho on her.

If it works I'm gonna be eternally grateful to you.

Bleash

 

[Jonny5]

any updates LGHT?