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harvesting When do you harvest?

B

bionic

I have ripe red habs, Scorpions and Ghost peppers but kind of like how they look on the plant, Here's the rub if it is affecting my yeild I will pull them but if it isn't taking any energy away from the plant is it ok to leave them on?
 
if you leave ripe peppers on the plant, the plant has done it's job for the season and produced viable seed....therefore it quits producing...the more you pick, the more it produces
 
I don't find that my plants produce any less leaving pods on vs picking, BUT a lot of pods = extra weight that can break branches.  Basically I pick them to suit my schedule, of course altering schedule to when a sufficient quantity are ripe too, to spend as little time as possible picking a lot at once but not waiting long enough that many are spoiled... besides the usual picking a few at a time to eat or cook with.
 
The only energy a full sized mature pod uses is that from the plant continuing to hydrate them.  If you have a severe hot, dry climate and water is scarce/rationed then that's an issue.  If not in that situation, hydration is not a significant burden on the plant.
 
It depends... if selling pick shortly after you start to see color so they don't spoil in shipping. For personal use pick early and pick often. The more you pick, the faster your plant produces replacements.
 
@ Dave...I don't want to argue with you on the plants producing more pods if you pick them regularly...but....
 
from all the research I have done over the years and from personal experience, I can tell you that they do...it may be because of your relatively short growing season as opposed to ours down south...dunno...probably...
 
to verify my statement, I sent a message (email) to NMSU CPI and posed the question about harvesting more to increase pod production...and I will post the response from them as soon as I get it...
 
in the mean time here is a quote from the "Fiery Foods and Barbecue Supersite" and I don't think they would post falsehoods about growing...
 
Fruit Load. The maximum weight of fruits that a fruiting plant can bear is known as its fruit load. The fruit load of each pepper plant is dependent on a number of considerations including stem size, amount of foliage, and the extent of the root system. When the plant achieves its fruit load, it ceases flowering. Thus a plant will stop producing fruit even though there may be a month or more left in the growing season.
The pepper gardener can increase the yield of plants by picking pods in their largest immature green form. The plant will not have to bear the weight of the pods removed, will continue flowering and setting fruit throughout the remainder of the season, and the total weight of pods produced by each plant will be greater.
However, the technique of periodic harvesting to increase pod yields only works in long growing seasons or with varieties having very short growing periods. In cooler climates, pepper plants may not reach their fruit load before the first killing frost, so picking pods early will not increase the total yield.
 
link to entire article...
 
http://www.fiery-foods.com/chile-pepper-gardening/124-the-pepper-growing-season/1866-part-2-maximizing-your-pepper-pod-yield
 
^  I have never had a plant cease flowering except from excessively hot or cold night temperatures (or disease) so maybe it is growing season related, though I'm not all that far north in that I usually grow into at least late Nov., but with you being further south you may be hitting excessively high night time temps.  Fortunately it is very rare for it to stay too hot at night here.
 
Maybe it's something else instead.  Some people feel they "need" to reduce nitrogen once a high bloom state happens.  I don't do that.  I compost and use balanced fertilizer too and haven't had bloom abortion from it.  I would never ever ever wait until a plant has low nitrogen symptoms to give it more fertilizer as the article suggests so we might say that the article is stating things that do not pan out to be true except in particular situations not clarified.  One cannot logically jump from "excessive fertilizer does bad things" to "so don't give them any instead of merely not giving them an excessive amount".  In a nitrogen reduced state it would not surprise me if stem and leaf growth necessary for a new node (to facilitate blooms) slowed down.
 
There are all kinds of self-defeating superstitions like this in growing, then when people repeat them enough times they become urban myths. The way I would explain the picking vs new blooms is as follows:
 
A plant pops out a bunch of blooms, then spends a much larger amount of energy on the resultant pods than new stem and leaf growth.  This makes the grower think it's not going to grow and produce more blooms unless they are picked, but it would have anyway once those pods reached full size and more energy was available for the next nodes and blooms.
 
Eventually it gets to a point where you keep getting forking and doubling of blooms then pods so each subsequent set of pods has higher pod to leaf and stem ratio.  For example suppose a 48" tall plant with 700 blooms that make it to pod stage, then 4" taller with another fork, and then it has 1400 blooms to pods. 
 
It's not that the plant has *decided* not to bloom any more, it's that a plant merely 4" taller has to put a lot more energy into growing 1400 pods and finishing up the prior 700 compared to previously growing 700 pods and finishing up the prior 350, with a progressively decreasing amount of solar energy to do it in once the middle of summer has passed and winter draws nearer.
 
At least this has been my experience over many years, that there is no slowdown or hesitation in new bloom production except that relative to how many new, not-yet-full-sized pods the plant is putting energy into.
 
well, after an exhaustive search on scholarly articles and contact with the Chili Pepper Institute and Texas A&M, it seems that there has been no research done on the subject...now, this is only from two universities so I have not given up hope yet...
 
a couple of articles hinted at it but no hard evidence that picking more produces more...
 
one article said that if you pick too soon it will actually decrease your production and recommended waiting until the first fruit load was 5-10% ripe before picking...then pick on a 10-14 day frequency...
 
good luck all in your grows this season and may the pepper gods be with you....
 
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