Who Tops Their Peppers?

[Siouxzn]

Late to the discussion... But I do not top mainly because I am chicken..
 
But I had a critter do the topping for me until all that was left were short sticks. I had several of the same variety so I was not too concerned and let them go to see if they would pop back. All the ones attacked were some type of Thai and the topped ones ended up with more peppers than the ones that were left alone.
 
That said, I am still a chicken and cannot bring myself to do it.. maybe with enough wine....

 

[SvtCobra]

Late to the discussion... But I do not top mainly because I am chicken..
 
But I had a critter do the topping for me until all that was left were short sticks. I had several of the same variety so I was not too concerned and let them go to see if they would pop back. All the ones attacked were some type of Thai and the topped ones ended up with more peppers than the ones that were left alone.
 
That said, I am still a chicken and cannot bring myself to do it.. maybe with enough wine....

 
It does cause a slight physical pain. But once you do you it gets easier. And then when you see how it just makes the plant kick into high gear, the pain goes away.

 

[koenv]

i tested this last season with Some spadi F1 peppers,
4 identical plants, 2 topped, 2 not (duh

Didnt notice higher yield, only slower growth of the topped plants.
Ok, They are sturdier, but our belgian Climate is difficult enough to grow peppers,
Topping the plants causes too much delay in growth for me.
So i'm not gonna top Any plants this year...

 

[Peter S]

I've topped this Hot Fingers twice so far. More out of necessity, keeps bumping up against the light and i don't feel like adjusting the shelf.
 

 

[TXCG]

These two plants are both Trinidad Seasoning peppers, one was topped by a hail storm when it was young & one was not. Any guesses which is which?
 

 

[SvtCobra]

These two plants are both Trinidad Seasoning peppers, one was topped by a hail storm when it was young & one was not. Any guesses which is which?
 

I would say the one on the left is the topped one.

 

[TXCG]

I would say the one on the left is the topped one.

 
 
Nope One in the bucket was the victim of the hailstorm. The only thing topping it did was set it back about 3 weeks behind the one in the bag as far as producing fruit. By the end of the season they looked more or less identical.
 

 
Personally I don't think peppers really benefit from topping unless you are growing indoors and very short on vertical space. Topping yields much greater results when used on plants that exhibit a strong degree of apical dominance since it causes what would normally be a tall straight plant to redirect auxin into the lower branches and cause it to grow more like a bush. Peppers already have a bushy growth habit and branch out and form a canopy and even send up additional tops from lower branches all on their own without any intervention.
 
I mean a cannabis plant or a pine tree wouldn't look like this without topping but a pepper can manage this without any help from shears or hail storms:
 

 
Just my two cents. Feel free to chop away at plants but I've never personally seen any benefit when it comes to peppers except when limited by space & that requires even more pruning than just a single topping. 

 

[Myxlplyk]

Hi, My name is MRGG*, and I am a Topper.
 
I top for fun, I top for production, and I top for space.
 
Put me on the list of "Toppers!"

 
Well, topper of the mornin to ya.

 

[standbyandfire]

I don't top, I may prune a little, but for the most part I let mother nature do it's thing.

 

[mrgrowguy]

I would say the one on the left is the topped one.

 
From TXCG - sorry, I messed up the quoting header

 
Nope One in the bucket was the victim of the hailstorm. The only thing topping it did was set it back about 3 weeks behind the one in the bag as far as producing fruit. By the end of the season they looked more or less identical.

 
 
 
I would say the results here might be misleading (not specifically wrong, but maybe inconclusive rather)... not saying for sure. The left one has much more soil volume, which could account for the increased growth, with or without being topped. And would account for them catching up at the end of the season, since the topped one in the smaller bucket grew more to catch up. But again, who knows, right!
 
Just curious, was the un-topped one also subjected to the same hail storm stress (aside for the actual act of being topped)? If so, then don't read the next sentence. But if it wasn't, then that could also account for the slower start of the one in the bucket [when being compared to the one in the large fabric pot].

 

[TXCG]

 
 
I would say the results here might be misleading (not necessarily wrong, but maybe inconclusive rather)... not saying for sure. The left one has much more soil volume, which could account for the increased growth, with or without being topped. And would account for them catching up at the end of the season, since the topped one in the smaller bucket grew more to catch up. But again, who knows, right!
 
Just curious, was the un-topped one also subjected to the same hail storm stress (aside for the actual act of being topped)? If so, then don't read the next sentence. But if it wasn't, then that could also account for the slower start of the one in the bucket [when being compared to the one in the large fabric pot].

 
I should have said "more or less identical in shape" but the un-topped one was a bit bigger overall due to no setback & also from having a larger pot. I just meant that at a glance you couldn't tell which one was topped since both were super bushy and neither were just tall & tree-like.
 
I did have a few other varieties where I grew one plant in a 5gal bucket and another in a larger root pot for science and surprisingly the bigger pot didn't seem to have that big of an impact on plant size which I think was due to the fact I was growing in soilless medium and feeding through fertigation with hydro nutrients. The biggest difference was how often I had to water the plants. I expected a much larger difference in plant size from using larger pots but it seems like most things can get plenty huge in a 5 gal if you feed em properly. 
 
And yeah, all the plants suffered from the same hail storm but the topped one was the only one that had the top completely severed. Everything else just had leaf damage but no broken stems. 

 

[YAMracer754]

     I never top my plants. In fact the little structural pruning I do is actually the opposite of topping.
     I let my plants grow naturally until they're about four months old, then I remove all buds (leave the leaves) on the lowest 3"-6" of the stem (depending on the size of the plant). Of the remaining buds on the stem, I select maybe 2 to 6 of them (again depends on the size and habit of the plant) to grow on to become scaffold branches. These branch buds are selected based on health, size, and how they are spaced apart on the stem relative to the others I'm keeping. 
     
Lets say I just potted up this guy and am going to determine how I want him to grow. This plant has recently forked, so I know roughly how long the stem is going to end up being.
I would remove all shoots from about the lower half of the stem. Then I would pick probably three or four buds on the upper part of the stem to save. I usually don't keep adjacent shoots and I only keep shoots that are growing in a different direction than their neighbors. 

 
 
 
 
     It sounds picky, and it is, but helps my plants greatly in the long run. My pods stay off the ground, I select for strong branches so fewer snap during storms or with pod weight, foliage is up off the ground so slugs can't climb on and rain can't splash it, increased airflow around plants encourages drying after rain or dew and discourages foliar disease
 
 
Here are some plants where you can see the attachments of some of the scaffold branches I left on the stem, below the fork:

 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 
Here's a row in a raised bed:  Having the surface of your soil or mulch open and aired out like this really helps keep things from getting stagnant and moldy during rainy/humid stretches.

 
 
 
 
This is a shot of that same raised bed ^ from the same angle, except standing instead of crouched on the ground. I don't believe that topping plants necessarily makes them any bushier, it just seems to make them bush out closer to the ground. Probably a good idea where it's windy and dry, but not smart where I live. BLS loves topped plants. This shot is just to illustrate how far behind they are since I didn't top them. So lanky and thin. I probably won't get any pods. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks for the very informative thread! Very logical and easy to understand! If I were to go about this on my plants when should I do it? I would like to experiment with this on 1/3 or 1/2 of my plants.. Here is where they are now.. They're staggered in age by about a month or so-I would say nearly 2mos old-starting the fork I think as you say-the big guys are early jpens

Regards,
-Tristan

 

[Hybrid Mode 01]

Thanks for the very informative thread! Very logical and easy to understand! If I were to go about this on my plants when should I do it? I would like to experiment with this on 1/3 or 1/2 of my plants.. Here is where they are now.. They're staggered in age by about a month or so-I would say nearly 2mos old-starting the fork I think as you say-the big guys are early jpens

1521740770152.jpg

Regards,
-Tristan

 
 
     I think the best time to start structural pruning is as soon as the plant starts pushing branches at the stem nodes - usually not long after the plant makes its first fork. The sooner you start subordinating those unneeded side shoots, the less energy the plant will waste on branches that will not remain on the mature plant.
     Just make sure you don't remove too many/all of the side shoots on the stem. It will need some branches down there for your plant to develop good stem taper so it doesn't snap under load. Plan on leaving a branch every few inches and try to space them so they don't get all up in eachothers' space and waste energy competing. Good branch spacing is important for light and air penetration. Good light and air penetration is important for a branch to be able to produce lots of healthy, undeaseased fruit.
     Good luck!

 

[YAMracer754]

 
 
     I think the best time to start structural pruning is as soon as the plant starts pushing branches at the stem nodes - usually not long after the plant makes its first fork. The sooner you start subordinating those unneeded side shoots, the less energy the plant will waste on branches that will not remain on the mature plant.
     Just make sure you don't remove too many/all of the side shoots on the stem. It will need some branches down there for your plant to develop good stem taper so it doesn't snap under load. Plan on leaving a branch every few inches and try to space them so they don't get all up in eachothers' space and waste energy competing. Good branch spacing is important for light and air penetration. Good light and air penetration is important for a branch to be able to produce lots of healthy, undeaseased fruit.
     Good luck!

Are these the branches or nodes you speak of that will be pruned? Forgive me as this is my first vegetable grow for peppers. Have experience with other plants and have seen the peppers and tomatoes life cycle as well growing up when my pops used to do a big garden but this my first! Also can I, or should I do it to tomato plants as well? Growing some of those as we speak too.. And yeah unfortunately I definitely already got plants getting in eachothers biz :-/ need to uppot and space out here soon.. Thanks man!

Regards,
-Tristan

 

[Hybrid Mode 01]

     Yup, those are the side shoots I'm talking about. I would pick off all those that are within maybe 4-6" of the soil line and then space them accordingly above that. All plants are different regarding overall size and internode length though, so not all can be treated with the same hard and fast rules.
     Tomatoes are different. Indeterminant tomatoes should almost always be free of all side shoots. Prune them back to just one long vine. Determinant varieties should be pruned into more of a bush form. Kind of like what you'd do for a pepper plant - you definitely want to remove all low branches since tomatoes are really susceptible to foliar disease that are transmitted by rainsplash. But I don't have a lot of experience with determinant tomato varieties, so I'm probably not the guy to ask about much beyond that.

 

[Jase4224]

I do because it's windy where I keep mine. The topped plants are more solid and need minimal if any staking whereas the non-topped plants get blown around even with staking.

I can't comment on production as I haven't had enough experience, but I do much prefer the way topped plants look.

Update: after a couple more years growing I have grown both topped and non topped plants of some varieties and can honestly say from a production point of view there is a negligible difference. The argument used often for topping plants is that more main branches you have the more fruit will be produced.. this in my experience is untrue. Multiple smaller branches produce the same as a plant that has not been topped that is allowed to Y at the top and split into its own number of branches.

The only difference is the shape of the plant and that a non topped plant will generally fruit a little earlier due to having no recovery time after being topped.

So, do you prefer the non topped umbrella shaped plant? Or the rounder and more stocky topped plant? Up to you but please dont worry too much about production as it wont make much difference.

I will add that topped plants are easier in smaller spaces and I like the look. If I had heaps of room I would probably not top my plants until they got a good prune after winter going into spring.

 

[YAMracer754]

Thanks man that helps a lot.. If it makes a difference they're like barely 2 mos old and are in 4.5x4.5 pots at the moment and are about 5.5" tall plants with tight nodes near the top as I upgraded light about 2 weeks ago..

Regards,
-Tristan

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

I'm an ex weed grower who massively believes in FIM and topping, but MJ is a main stem kind of plant not a Y splitting one like chillies are.

Six months ago I started my first outdoor chilies grow of Jalapenos and Scotch Bonnets. I topped all but one of the plants at the 3rd inter node, with two further tops of each new growth on the Scotch bonnets only. All the plants look great but I found the non topped plant fruited first, the topped plants second and the triple topped are still growing fruits way after the other plants have been harvested, with the non topped plant now halfway through growing its second set of fruits.

Getting ready for an indoor winter grow, I am just reading up on the to top or not to top subject and from what I have read from all sides, I am thinking that I shouldn't be topping the new plants.
It seems that if you want to harvest the plant all at once, then topping will help you do that, but if you want a steady flow of ripened fruit then don't top.
 
A scientific paper I read noted that topped plants gave more fruits and that the fruits were slightly smaller; that later fruiting of the topped plants means you are less likely to get a second crop before the outdoor growing season ends and that topping didn't really help gain any more final harvested weight over non topped plants.



 

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

My recent topping results/disaster:

http://thehotpepper.com/topic/67854-top-it-and-its-too-weak-to-bear-the-fruits/?p=1540320
 

 

[Chilidude]

     Yup, those are the side shoots I'm talking about. I would pick off all those that are within maybe 4-6" of the soil line and then space them accordingly above that. All plants are different regarding overall size and internode length though, so not all can be treated with the same hard and fast rules.
     Tomatoes are different. Indeterminant tomatoes should almost always be free of all side shoots. Prune them back to just one long vine. Determinant varieties should be pruned into more of a bush form. Kind of like what you'd do for a pepper plant - you definitely want to remove all low branches since tomatoes are really susceptible to foliar disease that are transmitted by rainsplash. But I don't have a lot of experience with determinant tomato varieties, so I'm probably not the guy to ask about much beyond that.

 
I do things little bit different, i let all the side stems grow however they want, but i remove all the lower leaves from the main/sidestems to make the watering easier.