is topping recommended as a routine thing and beneficial to make them bush out? i have seen youtube videos recommending it but don`t want to do it unless i`m sure it will increase my harvest. this is my second year growing peppers and didn`t top my plants last year. what do you do? thanks in advance. Â
-
Do you need help identifying a 🌶?
Is your plant suffering from an unknown issue? 🤧
Then ask in Identification and Diagnosis.
topping pepper plants?
- Thread starter luvmesump3pp3rz
- Start date
If you live in an area with a long growing season it can benefit your yields but keep in mind that topping will delay production early in the season and give you bigger yields later in the season so if you live in an area that gets early frost, you might be left with a bunch of unripe pods on the plants when first frost hits.
I don't have too much experience with it. I only really heard about it last year, and tried it on a couple plants. But, I'm not sure what effect it had, positive or negative, as I am still learning a lot about growing peppers and am making mistakes along the way.
In theory, it seems like it would benefit annuals, like cannabis, more than perennials like peppers.
In theory, it seems like it would benefit annuals, like cannabis, more than perennials like peppers.
I inadvertantly topped one of my plants in an accident with a grow light the other day. I live in 7b, so I've been scared to top anything. But, we'll see how this one does. . . I think it's a Serrano. Definitely something from one of the annuum trays...
thanks for the response. being new to this i can use the help. being a novice i picked up 10 plants from one of the big box stores a month ago. i`m in the northeast so growing season starts pretty much now. i kept them in the original containers(3.5 inch pots) and put them out on nicer days and brought them in at night as it was dropping down in the 40`s. after 2 weeks i planted them in containers and all have grown some and most have started setting flowers. that surprised me because last year i didn`t have flowers this early. i will let nature take it`s course and will not top them. thanks again for the help.
Âluvmesump3pp3rz said:
I have had fairly good success with my peppers this year, surprisingly. Aside from my arch nememis, ye olde South Florida white flies (I cured them without Imidacloprid!), I have also had space issues.
Â
Topping is a technique I just discovered this year. I agree with the above that there is a delay in the amount of peppers you might get because you topped. However, I cannot accurately comment on the "type" of peppers versus topping and its effect. In english, I don't know if topping works better on certain varieties than others. And I'm not sure if it will increase your yield. But it certainly helps with space issues.
Â
I have two varieties this year that are producing peppers now. Aji Melocoton and Devil's Brain (PL). I have been repeatedly topping both since they reached about a foot high in order to conserve space in between my banana plants. I noticed that, the longer that I went between toppings, the more new branch growth I got. The branch growth was not always lateral, but often vertical in multiple shoots. However, if your plant happens to grow laterally, all the better. This growth however, did not result in an immediate increase in pepper flowering. But after a week or two without clipping, I noticed new flowers starting to appear. *Note*. I have been eliminating, for the most part, all of the nitrogen I can from my fertilizer. Which for topping purposes may not be a good thing. Occasionally I added back in a bit of nitrogen to see if it made a difference. But since I want flowers, I instead have been dosing with a blooming mixture that is geared toward increased flower production (along with kelp fertilizer and a few additives geared toward controlling white flies [Armor Si.]).
Â
Here is a picture from a few weeks ago of my Devil's Brain (PL). You may noticed how if you look hard enough, you can see where I have clipped the plants previously, but there is not a lot of fruit yet. Which to me is proof that topping delays fruit production. I have been pruning these plants in the directions they grew. It so happens this one grew laterally. I had more space on the left side, so I pruned the right side in further and let the left grow further out.Â
Â
Â
Here is a picture of my Aji Melocoton. You can see the topping slightly better in the background here.
Â
Â
Â
Â
Â
Agree with the above but want to add the use I haven't read above; controlling height. My produce / eating peppers are all in the ground. I grow seed stock in containers so I can move them around when I isolate, pick this one or that depending on how they turn out. Even in five gallon nursery pots, our wind can kick over a tall plant. Trimmed down and bushed out, not so much.
I've never bought into the hype of topping. If done on an agricultural scale, yes, there's probably a benefit. There appears to be evidence that there is a small percentage of difference in yield, which to the hobby grower, wouldn't even be obvious. But there is strength in numbers, and multiplied over thousands of plants, amounts to a not insignificant gain.
.
I find that having peppers earlier, is more advantageous than having a statistically insignificant number of peppers, later.
.
Plants are fractal in nature. That is, they are self-replicating. Pepper plants tend to "fork" at given nodes. If you could find a way to top the plant in such a way that you encouraged some sort of increase in "forking", then I'd say that would be super beneficial. But I don't believe that's what we do when we top.
.
The evidence seems to suggest that early topping slightly increases the efficiency of the root system. But how that translates into long-term, or the end-product, is still subject to all the other variables. Maybe it works for you, maybe it doesn't.
.
The best way to test, is to do a side-by-side comparison with topped and untopped plants of the same species. Not one or two, but dozens of each. Measure, observe, repeat.
.
I find that having peppers earlier, is more advantageous than having a statistically insignificant number of peppers, later.
.
Plants are fractal in nature. That is, they are self-replicating. Pepper plants tend to "fork" at given nodes. If you could find a way to top the plant in such a way that you encouraged some sort of increase in "forking", then I'd say that would be super beneficial. But I don't believe that's what we do when we top.
.
The evidence seems to suggest that early topping slightly increases the efficiency of the root system. But how that translates into long-term, or the end-product, is still subject to all the other variables. Maybe it works for you, maybe it doesn't.
.
The best way to test, is to do a side-by-side comparison with topped and untopped plants of the same species. Not one or two, but dozens of each. Measure, observe, repeat.
I agree. I am tempted to try this one day. Same variety, same source of seeds, and a sample size big enough to actually impart some information.solid7 said:
My gut tells me that topping won't do me much good with my late-producing chinense** here in 7b, especially given my other often-ineffective gardening methods. I suspect that I need to leave as much biomass on my plants as I can. Still, my gut had been wrong before...a buncha times. So maybe if/when I get good at growing chile plants, I'll conduct an experiment to see if I'm right or not.
**I should probably start the experiments with my annuums, as they tend to produce far earlier, plus mine always grow leggy as hell, as compared to my chinense.
ÂBicycle808 said:
Â
I think you're right about this. I have a damn near perfect climate for Chinense, and mine don't really start to kick into top gear until they're about 6 months old. Don't get me wrong, they have peppers much earlier than that. But the good stuff happens with age.
.
If you're going to go with a Chinense, I'd suggest a plain ol' garden variety Habanero. Nothing exotic. Those seem to be pretty well acclimated for a shorter growing season.
.
It would be awesome if we could get a whole bunch of forum members to try this experiment. That would be some data that we could all benefit from.
Hell yes! That'd be rad, with enough participants...
I topped half my plants one year (about 10) and left the others alone. My topped plants did terrible. Perhaps I did something wrong but I did see another forum member on here mention that if you're going to top them then it should be done a couple weeks before moving them outside for hardening off. I'm not sure why that is but apparently it's a thing. I have not personally tested that theory though.
I was thinking something Growdown Throwdown style, with everyone using the same seed source and contributing to one glog, but each person growing one topped, one untopped, and starting seeds within a small window of time. It could also tell some anecdotal stuff about topping vs not in different climates and conditions. It wouldn't be very scientific, but it could still show a trend.solid7 said:
Very interesting topic!
Â
6 weeks ago I topped for the first time and apprehensively noticed the plant did not visibly grow for 2-3 weeks. I believe this is because as others have mentioned it was renegotiating its development priorities and focusing on roots.
I also transplanted it to give it more room for roots around the time of topping. Looking at it now and I can barely even tell it was topped because it has become so bushy and grown 2x taller.
Â
I am curiously following any experiments which are A/B testing topping.
Â
6 weeks ago I topped for the first time and apprehensively noticed the plant did not visibly grow for 2-3 weeks. I believe this is because as others have mentioned it was renegotiating its development priorities and focusing on roots.
I also transplanted it to give it more room for roots around the time of topping. Looking at it now and I can barely even tell it was topped because it has become so bushy and grown 2x taller.
Â
I am curiously following any experiments which are A/B testing topping.
You don't really have to do that. Adding bloom additives isn't really going to increase fruit production. Also, if you have bananas in close proximity to your peppers, they'll outcompete for most nutrients, anyway. (especially N)keybrdkid said:
.
Plants don't selectively take from an abundance of nutrients. They either need them, or they don't. As long as you don't dose anything so high that you're just adding excess salt, you'll see little to no difference, at all. (provided that nothing else is deficient, of course)
I have topped off several of mine, and they have bushed out tremendously this year. We have a LOT of rain here right now, which poses other challenges. New flower growth, and eventually pods, seem to take a while with anything on new growth. Hence, dropping lots of flowers until one day they start taking, and yielding pods. I do trim new growth that comes up at the woody base of plants, because my understanding is it competes with the top and extremities, where most of your larger fruit should bear. It seems to be working for the majority of the dozen varieties I am currently growing. The delay and flower drop is frustrating, but we are being careful not to over-water, feed regularly, and transplant when roots are getting bunched. I just need more, larger pots, soil, and patience (now, dammit!).
I do on certain kinds like my Goats Weed, but not until they have matured a bit. They get peppers later than most of my peppers and I have a long summer so they have time to bush out better.
The only time I top pepper plants is when they tend to grow mostly straight up. This isn't a problem with Chinense and Baccatum varieties which bush out. This year, I'm growing a Thai variety and a couple of Pipi de Mono plants that aren't naturally bushing - so I have topped these because they were growing straight up.