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When should I stop pinching?

TexomaHeat

TexomaHeat

I decided this year to take the advice given here to pinch off any early buds and blossoms to help grow a sturdier, stronger plant that would produce more later in the season. Or something. All I know is I've read to pinch.

My question is, therefore, when is it time to stop pinching and let it get down with its bad self and start making babies?
 
+1 on that. I have been pinching so far, but I dont know when exactly to stop. The only plant that I have allowed to start actually producing is a Black Pearl. Ive got a good 20-30 buds on it right now. But yeah, is there a general rule of thumb on how long you should pinch for?
 
I am pinching for one week after transplant this year. I think it's useful to not take the whole pinching thing too far into June and to generally let nature be nature. This is not based on expert knowledge, just gut feel from last year. I would definitely (and will definitely) pinch off any bud that's there at transplant or pops up in the first few days after transplant.

(also....it's easy to see visually that pinching buds improves foilage growth, but it's less clear that doing so yields a larger total quantity of peppers for the season than if you just left the plants alone. Maybe a little bit, but enough to bother and risk damaging the plants?)
 
Well, I would definitely recommend doing what someone more experienced says, but what I've done so far is pinch a couple buds off each section, leaving one or two per budding section. Did that twice, and now I'm gonna let 'em grow. Afraid to 1) delay set of fruit too much, and 2) reduce the total amount of fruit set. I figured that'd be a nice medium. My habs are already producing a lot of buds.

Really though, the plants seem to be growing so well, I'm wondering if I should've even bothered...
 
I usually will pinch before transplant if the blossom opens fully, I try and time my plants/planting so that I have unopened blossoms on the plant
when it is transplanted, if there is a fully open blossom or a pod on the transplant they seem to go into shock and won't grow and produce as quickly as the pod/open blossom free plants. After they are transplanted its "game on!".
 
I like to go by the size of the plant. For the most part pepper plants don't get much past four feet tall at best. FOR THE MOST PART. When I figure it has about 75% of it's height, around three feet or so, and spread out some I'll let the pods go and stop pinching. If I had several of the same species I would occasionally let one go without pinching. Those never got as big or produced as much as the ones I pinched. I'm stopping that practice this year.
 
I generally agree with Patrick's above answer, but as a rule of thumb: - if the plant seems too small to be making pods already, it's mandatory to pinch. But as to what size to stop?, I'm not so sure. Just give it a chance to get some nice vegetation before it goes to work. Vegetation = power and more power = more pods. Seems like I stopped pinching in mid-June last year, but a lot depends on when you plants were started. I still think it's better to err on the side of pinching a bit too long. Try it both ways and take good notes. A short pencil beats a long memory.
 
I was wondering the same thing. Still not really clear to me even after reading the above responses. 75% of its growth? It seems like that could take another month for mine unless they just go absolutely nuts after they are transplanted. Right now seeing that my chinense plants are in the range of 5-8 inches tall that seems like a long time away. I don't want to end up pinching for too long and end up with no ripe pods before the first frost hits. Hmm..confusion.
 
In my climate I often pick buds off annuums until as late as the beginning of July and chinenses until about now, the beginning of June and I always notice a massive increase in overall size and production. This year however things seem way ahead of schedule weather wise so I may stop pinching earlier too.
 
There are so many variables that there really isn't any cut and dried answer to this question. One of the big ones is how long you have left in your season. Pepper plants are one of the few that will continue to grow and produce fruit at the same time and they'll do it for as long as conditions are right--to a point anyway. You can't have both peaking at the same time though. If you know you have a couple of months left to grow concentrate the first half or so getting the plant to grow, focus all of it's energy on becoming bigger and healthier. Give it the nutrients that will help it complete this stage. Then when you're getting to the halfway point of your season switch your nutes over to the ones that give the plant the necessary energy to produce fruit. It will continue to grow but at a much slower pace.

In my experience I've found that it's much better to pick pods off of a large pepper plant for a month than to pick pods off of a small pepper plant for two months. The large plant will give you many more pods and they will be much larger compared to the smaller one.

Hope that helps.
 
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