Lovely to see the end result after a few weeks. Normally videos stop after showing the prune and say "trust me guys it will work" and never show what happens after the prune. Thanks
@@poolman8676 Doing well! We are in Central CA, so our growing season is almost year round. It'll be rainy and gloomy for the next two says, but low high 70s and low 80s beginning next week. Got to figure out what's going on with my jalapeño plant, though. It was producing nice sized peppers a few months ago (incidentally when I was paying it very little attention). Now, the peppers are very very small and don't seem to be growing. I'll be troubleshooting, but I'm thinking that they'll improve once it starts heating up again.
@@Zizzyyzz I'm in SoCal, and it's been cold and windy. My friend down the street started his garden and lost everything because we had a freeze about a week ago. I've learned throughout the years not to plan until May. Weather's been really strange lately. It snows where I live so we only have two seasons to grow
Loved your quick lesson on pruning, and also that you showed the result of doing so. It's always nice to see the actual results and not just hear about what it will look like.
Just a tip. My wife always use my cut off chili leaves in her cooking. Stir fry and soups mostly. I never throw away chili leaves. We even grow some plants for just that purpose :)
Chili leaves tastes superb as well. We also use them for cooking our dishes, though we only use spare chili plants who dont fruit much. I'd love to know how you guys grow chilis for their leaves! ( ´ ▿ ` )
We also use chili leaves in our dishes like chicken soup and curries. I love the aroma of chili leaves but it’s best paired with fresh crushed green chilies for a bit of spice
@@motazfawzi2504 Better to take those cuttings and put them in an inert growing media like pearlite or vermiculite and then cover them with dome to root them
@@RaspyOB174. I’m wanting to verify. You put the clipping in a container of vermiculite or perlite with water and cover with dome to root the pepper clipping, correct? 🇨🇦🌞
@@sncddb Yea either one. Pearlite or vermiculite or even coarse sand. I have tried soil but with less success but not zero success. Outside soil needs to be steamed to kill the bugs and other things but still likes to mold. Potting soil same issue and fruit flies love to eat and lay eggs in pure soil indoors so put sand 1" or 3cm on surface to prevent flies in your indoor plants. Its just too much organics to root awesomely indoors but can work with soil. Mine tend to die and rot before they root in soil so I use inert medium. You could even use those little clay balls or coco coir. Whatever is the cheapest and quickest to obtain inert media in your area is best. Don't forget that the point where a pepper or most other plants root from is a node where the plant splits. Cut just below the node and bury that node after some rooting horomone. Keep soft wood cuttings like peppers and tomatoes very humid and use a fungicide spray if needed. Immediately remove any dead material as it appears or mold will take hold of it. Have fun and experiment what works best. Keep a Book and write down your timings and products and everything you did! You'll thank yourself later
Topping plants is one of the best ways for increasing yields for pretty much any type of flowing plant or fruit. In the cannabis grow scene topping your plant just once when it reaches 4-5 nodes tall will instantly double your yield of flower. I would imagine this would apply to chilli's also, as the plant will now grow 2 main "heads" and the lower stems will be able to catch up. You can top the topped heads aswell a few weeks down the line once they start to grow, and you can also top the heads of the lower branches when they catch up with the top. The end result is a plant that has like 8 main stems that will all produce tons of fruit or flowers.
Excellent presentation. I like that you stated what you are going to cover, then covering it smoothly and succinctly. I also love that you showed the plants a couple weeks after pruning. Thank you!
Yeah, deer did this for me early in the season :( but I was happy to see that the plant seems to have rebounded and grown more strongly, so I'll probably do it myself in the future.
Finally brought myself to prune some of my seedlings for the first time, and a week or so later I can already see how the new growth below has been developing rapidly! Exciting stuff!
I'm not gonna lie. It really feels bad to look at all the top foliage a pepper has made, and then have to cut it off, but the 'after' that you showed, really gave some encouragement. I'm now starting to grow out some sweet peppers and pimentos in my yard, and I think I'll try my hand at pruning them. It's the self assurance and encouragement I need to give myself to do it in the first place. 😢
It is worth maybe testing a bit yourself. It definitely produces a bushier plant and a wider habit, but we rarely prune our plants anymore and have great results!
What a great timing!!! I am growing chili peppers caterorized as " SuperHot " namely california/carolina repears, trinidad moruga scorpion, habaneros, bhut jolokias and many more and as a newbie. Hope this video might help🙏. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, experience, methods and expertise.
Very, very well done video. You go right to the point in an understandable way with clear, close-up views of plants. Love the side by side before and after comparisons. As Barney Fife would say, it's time for me to "nip it"!
This helps so much. I’m one of those who balk at cutting into healthy growth..its hard..but the results are worth it..i do it when harvesting basil so i understand it works ..will definitely be doing it with my next peppers. 🌶🌶❤️❤️🔥🔥
I'd love to see a long term, side-by-side growth comparison, and then a harvest comparison as well. There seems to be conflicting information as to whether or not there is true value to topping.
I've done those side by side with 18 different varieties. A minimum of four plants of each variety two in ground and two potted one of each topped and one of each left alone. There was zero benefit towards a bigger yield from the topped peppers versus non-topped and only on about three varieties did I notice any growth difference at all towards being more bushy which isn't necessarily a good thing for peppers as they like to breathe and not feel crowded by bushy branches which yields more fruit. Don't mind me I'm just some random guy who's been growing peppers and cross breeding my own off and on for about 35 plus years
I should add at one point I tried to have a RU-vid channel about this exact topic (well growing peppers in general not just topping )but RU-vid kept removing my videos.
I took the tops I cut off of 3 plants and put them in water under the grow light. 2 of them got long white roots, I planted them and they grew almost as big as the original plant and I got peppers off them :D
Great information. I have never done that before but I started pepper seeds indoors and they are about 4 inches tall now. So healthy looking. I am going to do this. I so appreciate your content. New subscriber as of now. Thanks Bev from Oklahoma
Me again. I've topped my plants but have never cut off at the actual main stem. I've always cut the new grow just above the last two leaves. I'm now topping these plants for the second time since they've forked and I'll give you a update on their growth. I like all your videos, keep up the good info your sending out.
I collect all my cuts, wash them and store in the fridge for a few days and add them to my chicken corn soup. They give a delicious flavor to my soup! Yummy!
A lot of my peppers seem to Y out themselves and react the same as if you topped them. These F1 hybrid Sureno peppers in particular seem to excel at it
Yes, true. We have plenty of plants that we don't prune that work out great - it is mostly for when we plant too early and need to reduce plant size until they can get outdoors😅
The question about Re-topping is interesting. I’m a first time Pepper grower doing some Jalapeños. I’ve got around 40 on the go so I’ve got plenty to experiment with. 1. The taller ones I’ve topped. What I’ve noticed is that they keep adding pairs of new true leaves until around the second or third set and then the stem forks, either into two stems or sometimes three. After that they start producing flowers. I’ve opted to top them just above the leaf node immediately below the fork. 2. The more squat plants I’ve left un-topped as controls. 3. The new growth on the topped plants came on quickly. Some of these new “side stems” would grow just like the main stem and I was able to re-top them again as before. However, many of them forked straight away without producing any leaf nodes/buds which would have enabled Re-topping. I’m watching with interest to compare development, but as a first timer, I’m concentrating on getting my watering, lighting, soil and humidity well balanced so it’s really the least concern right now. 😂 Thanks so much for all you do! 🌶❤️
I see why my Japenos grew so tall but not bushy lol. I didn't know i need to do this to get busy. I'm going to do this to my Red Fajita frist thin in the morning!
Excellent video. Props for taking the time to time-lapse and show your advice. I think I have the courage to top my pepper plants now lol. Still unsure about my Poblano just because the size of the plant seems to need to be bigger for such large chili's.
Thanks! Last year we didn’t top our poblanos or bells and had decent harvests - we’ve heard those pepper types don’t benefit from topping, but haven’t personally tested it side by side.
@@PepperGeek I noticed I have done it on my serrano this year but stuff like habanero, habanadas seem to grow naturally bushy so in my (UK) climate i feel it wouldn't be beneficial on these plants, I'm still learning but it seems it works well on the annums here but not the chinense.
Hey, I like your channel, as peppers are the one crop that I haven’t yet had fantastic results in growing. I’ve got to say that I’ve seen other channels clip as much as 1/3 of the top off! It makes me cringe that all that growth, energy and time is wasted. I always make my trimming of a plant when the main node (main growth chute) is tiny, maybe a quarter inch, or as small as a pair of tiny scissors can cleanly cut it. Also, if you live in an area where the sun is strong like me (Colorado), afternoon shade is a deal breaker - you MUST have it! You mentioned this on another video but I wanted to repeat it since I think it’s a big factor. Good luck gardening in 2023!
I just want to say you are awesome I have so much questions lol? I love growing pepper plants they are my favorite plants to grow. I would like a list of a lot of the stuff you guys do.
Thank you so much for this video! I have always been unhappy with the way my peppers and chiles grow so leggy and topheavy. I pruned all my plants this year according to your instructions, and they're all growing bushy and beginning to flower. It is weird to cut into a healthy plant but it seems to pay off!
This seems to behave much like basil plants, where you cut off just above a node, and it'll grow double, then quadruple and the cycle continues. Still totally new to pepper plants :)
3 года назад
it's even more useful on basil, as this delays flowering.
Just going to answer myself :p I did 2 plants, 1 without pruning (and not removing early flowers) and 1 with pruning and removing early flowers. The latter grew bigger, produced more peppers and it was able to hold the weight of the peppers. The first plant needed wooden sticks in order to support the weight. So yeah, I'm definitely doing this next year to all my pepper plants (and basil :p ).
3 года назад
@@vBDKv Indeed and basil tends to die or at least severely slow down its vegetative growth once it has flowered.
You also stop the plant from producing Organic Auxin hormones from the mature terminal top lead which releases downward and stops other branches or leaves from growing outward but vertical and without new limb leads.
Reason why: Plants have so called 'apical dominance'. It is the outer most growth end/point of a shoot. This region contains highly active undifferentiated cells that are constantly dividing. This point also produces hormones that flow down the stem and suppress the growth of any lower regions of undifferentiated cells (buds). The concentration of said hormones diminishes the further down you go; that's why not ALL buds lower down are suppressed and still manage to grow at some point. In an ideal scenario this produces a plant (given ONE dominant stem like a tree) with a conical shape where all (OUTER; remember a plant has no leaves on 'the inside') areas of the plant receive enough light to be productive. This is to avoid competition between buds within the plant (overshadowing) and the possibility of outcompeting any neighbours by outgrowing them faster (in height) to avoid being overshadowed by them. Take that litle hormone producing factory away by pruning, and suddenly other buds are no longer suppressed and begin growing. They in turn ofcourse produce their own suppressing hormones.
Eh, we don’t really do much pruning anymore. It is always an option, but I wouldn’t recommend doing it late, or not at all if you have a short-ish growing season
I root my cuttings when I trim a new nursery plant, like Buy one Get one Free, the cuttings are much slower to get going than the original plants but faster than starting from seed.
What was the final outcome with the pruning experiment? I don’t see a follow up video. I would think pruning them early way before they go in the ground would mitigate any stunting that would occur with pruning once planted.
We ran into some weather problems last year that threw off the results - even so the two plants produced roughly the same # of pods in the end. Hoping to run another experiment with better controlled environment
I tried a series of pruning experiments 2 years ago. The results were somewhat mixed. The peppers benefiting most from pruning were either too leggy to begin with, or were one of the varieties like Cayenne that have a sprawling sparse growth habit with narrow leaves. Bushier wide-leaved plants (like habaneros) didn't seem to benefit. Growing 2 of the same kind of peppers in the same place (from the same germination cell) seems similar -- good with sparser varieties and less helpful with bush broad-leaved pepper plants.
I would try to space it out - but if you are transplanting up perhaps pruning isn't necessary..one of the benefits of it is keeping the plants more compact in smaller containers. Something to consider - good luck!
