Very Short Habanero, Many Buds?

T

thelapua

I have been growing some Habaneros under a 600W equiv. LED light fixture. I have been dealing with short bushy plants that just don’t seem to be growing vertical. I am not sure if I over pruned it, but they are about 5 or so months old. I removed buds and leaves to encourage stem growth, but they still put out huge number of small leaves and buds. In the following photo, the plant is about 5.5 inches tall. There are 10-15 buds on each of the plants, and they have started to flower. Is this plant too short to support pods? Why is the plant so short, yet it wants to spit out buds like crazy? I only used that photo because it was the first one to flower. The others have many more buds. Should I remove the buds, or just let it do its thing. Thanks!
 

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It's kinda a debate on that one. Some people say to remove them and others say to let them be. I personally remove them if I think the plant is too small to fruit.
 
I am not sure why your plant is staying so short. That's really small for 5 months old. Maybe something to do with lighting (how far away is the light?) or nutrients (what are you feeding it?), or maybe even just genetics (what variety is it?). Also, what size container do you have it in? You can pick off the buds if you want to try and encourage more growth, but I would expect most if not all of the flowers will likely drop off on their own on a plant that size anyway. Don't worry, the plant won't ripen more pods than it can handle, regardless of how many flowers it initially puts out. Still, a even plant that small can set and ripen pods. I probably wouldn't expect more than one or two pods on such a little plant, unless they are little pods like Cumari do Para or White Bullet habs. Personally, I would first double-check to be sure that my lighting and nutes were right, and then I would stop messing with it and just trust that the pepper plant knows how to be a pepper plant.
 
Edmick said:
It's kinda a debate on that one. Some people say to remove them and others say to let them be. I personally remove them if I think the plant is too small to fruit.
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Right, and I have been removing the buds for a very long time, yet I haven't seen much change in the plant in the past two months. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. I feed them nutrients, adjust pH of water. The 600W LED fixture is plenty bright.
 
BlackFatalii said:
I am not sure why your plant is staying so short. That's really small for 5 months old. Maybe something to do with lighting (how far away is the light?) or nutrients (what are you feeding it?), or maybe even just genetics (what variety is it?). You can pick off the buds if you want to try and encourage more growth, but I would expect most if not all of the flowers will likely drop off on their own on a plant that size anyway. Don't worry, the plant won't ripen more pods than it can handle, regardless of how many flowers it initially puts out. Still, a even plant that small can set and ripen pods. I probably wouldn't expect more than one or two pods on such a little plant, unless they are little pods like Cumari do Para or White Bullet habs. Personally, I would first double-check to be sure that my lighting and nutes were right, and then I would stop messing with it and just trust that the pepper plant knows how to be a pepper plant.
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I tried moving the lights farther from the plant to stretch them out and it didn't make a difference. I brought them really close to the light, and it made no difference. I am going to rule out genetics since I started 4 habaneros and 4 reapers at the same time, and they are currently the same size. 
 
The only plant that seems to be growing well is a DWC Anaheim (cap. annum) that was bought when was only a few weeks old. I put it in DWC and its already taller than my 5 month old plants. Are cap. chinense that slow of growers? 
 
What did it look like before you trimmed it back? If I had to guess, I would say this might have something to do with it. What part of socal are you from by the way?
 
Edmick said:
What did it look like before you trimmed it back? If I had to guess, I would say this might have something to do with it. What part of socal are you from by the way?
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It mostly looked the same. I really only pruned off all but a few of the leaves, leaving behind the stems to branch out. I didn't think I was being too aggressive. 
 
I live around orange county. 
 
FYI, here is my tent setup if anyone is interested. 
 

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DD and I seem to be thinking alike...it may have something to do with the spectrum of light being supplied.  For vegetative growth you needa more "blue" light....Iam in the process of relighting my entire grow room which currently uses 6500K color temperature CFLs.
 
as far as pinching the buds off...if you are in a hurry for pods to appear, letem' be....if there is no hurry for pods, pinch the dodo out of them
 
AJ
 
Sorry guys for the late reply. So I am now confused about the light. I was starting to think that it was the light, but my DWC plant has had explosive growth. The photo I posted earlier was taken maybe 8-9 days ago from this one. I am starting to think it has to do with nutrients rather than the light. The DWC has grown more in the past 3 weeks than my 5 month old reapers and habaneros have in their whole life. 
 

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