Flowering hot pepper plants problems...

14 years ago

Hello,

I'm currently growing bhut Jolokia pepeprs, and chocolate habanaro peppers hydroponically/aeroponically.

A little info on the setup, I'm using 250W metal halide bulbs for the veg stages of plant growth, and swapped over to a 2700K bulb for flowering. I'm also using general hydroponics flora series of nutrients for the nutrient solution.

So far the plants have been growing very good, look nice and healthy. I also had them on an 18 hour on, 6 hours off light cycle. Well I noticed little buds/flowers beginning to develop on the plant, so I changed the solution to "transition to flowering/blooming stage" and I changed the light cycle to 12 on 12 off. I did this for a week or so, then have been using the "flowering/blooming and ripening nutrient solution" mixture, with the same 12 on 12 off light cycle.

My problem is that the buds somewhat start to develope (very slowly I might add), and they dry up and fall off, they never turn into flowers.

I was also wondering how these plants started flowering before I "triggered" them to flower (by changing the light cycle).

So basically I'm just confused as to what to do with these plants to progress with them, any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

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Comments (2)

smokemaster_2007
14 years ago
From what I've read peppers aren't light sensative as far as trigering flowering etc. goes.
Mine flower under Fluorescent light easily.
I'm not growing most of mine in hydro.
Most are going outside in pots.
I usually add calcium to get my buds to pod out if they are dropping.
I think Peppers are time triggered for budding.
When they get old enough,under the right conditions they bud.Some faster than others.
I've never figured out why 1 plant puts out pods easily while another under the same conditions drops buds.
For Hydro it could be a PH thing.
Peppers are supposed to like 6.5 (I think) so try going up or down for a week and see if anything changes.
PH determins what nutes are available for your plants to use in general.
Especially when it comes to Magnesium,Calcium and iron among others.
The few plants I have in Hydro are around 6.5-slightly up or down from that at times...I'm not the best at checking as much as I should.
I don't do much more than add water between fert. changes like I probably should.
Maybe check out the hydro board.
Post your findings here though,it might interest others.
mahonroy
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks for the advice!
So do you think I should put the plants back on the 18 hour light cycle? Also, should I swap the nutrients back to what they were before? (the veg stage nutrient mixture), and as soon as actual peppers start to form then change the solution to fruiting solution?
Generally the ph for hydro is about 0.5 lower than the ph you would use in soil, so thats why I was doing it around 6.0, is this correct?
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Flowering hot pepper plants problems...

Comments (2)

smokemaster_2007

mahonroy
Original Author

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Flowering hot pepper plants problems...

Comments (2)

smokemaster_2007

mahonroyOriginal Author

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mahonroy
Original Author