As an experiment I purchased and planted 2 small Thai chili pepper plants in 3 gallon fabric pots on May 1st. I have been removing nearly all flowers that form on plant 1 and did not touch plant 2. Same feeding and watering schedule same exposure to sunlight. Curious to compare pepper production later in the year. I will remove all flowers on plant 1 up to July 1st and report back at the end of the season. Cheers!
by manwithafrotto
19 Comments
I got about 5 years experience with pepper growing and IME letting early flowers do their thing just stalls the plant until those peppers are done and sometimes it can take 6-8 weeks or more if it’s a little plant with few leaves, I don’t know what’s up with the comments on other threads to not pinch them off or it will stunt/damage the plant, not true at all.
Let us know how much peppers each one produces by the end. That’s the real test.
Cutting some of the giant leaves back did wonders for my habaneros as well my cucurbits
My brother ate crayons every day and he’s way taller than me! Proof that crayons make you taller!
I’ve done a much larger control than your 2 plants, and the final fruit output was basically the same
I have two shishitos right next to one another – seeded at the same time, transplanted at the same time, fed and watered the same, etc. One is much bigger and bushier, the other is smaller, even though I haven’t pinched or pruned anything. Unfortunately just two plants isn’t a big enough sample size to get much great info out of, but it’ll be interesting to see how they compare at the end!
You need a larger sample size. All seeds are not the same.
I wish you luck. Im still not removing any flowers. I think its a waste of work.
This is an incredibly underpowered and unreproduced study to draw a conclusion from. Do three independent experiments with three technical replicates each, at the bare minimum.
I’m mostly joking, I don’t care or expect random gardeners to do this…but I do want to point out that anecdotal observations are not data.
I have no opinion on this topic. However, a sample size of 2 will never prove anything. There are near infinite other variables.
This guy has grown 2 pepper plants in his life in a moderate climates and has proof. Lol!
I am in zone 10B and I will pick the flowers off for the first month two month and a half and I’ve got some monsters going. I also feed it nutrients that will help the growth stage versus flowering stage
Do you have a long or short growing season
I planted about 15 Jalapenos from seed this year and each is at different size now.
We got a scientist guys! Everyone start plucking flowers!
Of course it did does. I grew up in a garden centre and it’s definitely true.
This has been my experience as well.
Good thing rabbits ate mine then. Little jerks.
May do this with my choc hab but we got a short growing season