Hey everyone,
I’ve got a bit of a situation with my chili plants and wanted to get your advice.
I started several varieties about 1.5 months ago under a 50W grow light. The plants (including Lemon Drop, Cayenne, and some other chili varieties) were sown directly into chili substrate that was already pre-fertilized, so I haven’t added any fertilizer yet.
Now I’ve noticed that some of the plants are already starting to develop flowers. From what I understand, this seems pretty early. In my region (Germany), I won’t be able to move them outside for at least another 1.5 months—basically not until after the “Ice Saints” (mid-May), when frost risk is gone.
So my questions:
– Should I remove the flowers at this stage to encourage more vegetative growth?
– Or is it okay to just leave them and let the plant do its thing?
– Are there better methods to handle early flowering?
There’s also a second issue:
My Lemon Drop plants are growing really well with strong leaves, but some of my Cayenne (Picture 2) plants have curled or rolled leaves. Does anyone know what could be causing this? Light stress, watering issues, or something else?
by Melodic-Bit7032
5 Comments
I’m guessing they need up potting, otherwise flowering happens.
I say keep them. My plants did this and grew peppers while continuing to veg. Didn’t seem to slow its growth at all. By the time the first peppers finished the second round of peppers were already getting bigger. For me my plant basically did the same thing as cannabis plants do. Pre-flowering.
Hey! Berliner hier 🙂 I have the same Situation. There are different opinions about it, mine are bigger though and I have no place anymore. Some people say it´s better to remove the flowers, others just don´t.
I decided to do it in 50% of my plants and see what happens next, it´s part of my learning process. There is a german Forum where I learnt a lot those months, they may help you better in some situations since the geographical conditions matter a lot. This issue was several times addressed in the Forum, take a look => [Hot-Pain.de – Alles rund um Chilis!](https://chiliforum.hot-pain.de/)
Viel Erfolg!
Yeah, you’re pretty early. I’m in Japan, on a similar schedule with planting on or after Golden week (same time as you), and my seeds have just germinated or still haven’t.
Here’s my take: the goal right now needs to be to prevent the roots from binding. You have six weeks to go and just pulling flowers is only going to promote root growth.
Basically, the best move is right now is to pot up to the next size pot. Pot up over the weekend, then you get a stall of a week, and then some space to grow. You may need to got two sizes up though.
If you can, I would aim to get them outside one or two weeks before your planned date. I use plastic mulch to warm the soil and row covers to keep the upper parts warm. It’s not ideal but I think I’d try that than get them root bound.
On the plus side, Mae a note of your planting date and you can adjust next year and save yourself 4-6 weeks of time and money!
I have the same situation and don’t have the space for larger pots. They’re starting to form flower buds and I’m tempted to cut them off when they are large enough (to safely cut). Unsure what I’ll do in the end. They’ll have to stay in their P7 pots for 6 more weeks (3.3 inch)