I have heard that you let the first fruit of peppers and tomatoes form and reach about half of their size or until they are just beginning to pull the plant down then pick it so that the plant gets into the groove of fruiting...maybe I am also misinformed...

Jen

great topic!

this year i had a mislabeling mishap with my seeds. long story short to figure out whick was which (i knew which plants were the same because they were side by side) i had several pairs of plants. i would let one of the plants flower and pluck the others flowers. did this across the board with them all. anyway the ones i let fruit i only let a few pods set (2-6) and picked the rest.

what i saw after plucking flowers about 3 times. the plucked plants were much bigger and brachier. the unplucked plants seemsed to stall in comparison. not much growth after the pods set.

imo it takes time to pluck flowers and more time each time you do it. i simply refused to pluck my lemon drop after the 2nd time. to friggin many to pluck.

i also did this with 2 savina cuttings and the difference there was crazy. i will add with the savinas the plucked got lots of nitrogen as well.

i dont know about tomatoes but with peppers it will give you bigger yeilds from what i have seen.

Michael

I have been thinking about pinching off some of my plants, but they are all flowering now. Should I wait until they go back to a vegitive state, or does it matter?

I have a few plants that are absolutely loaded with buds from plucking the first few sets of buds off. Whether they actually fruit remains to be seen.

As far as plant size, one of the things that I did for plants in the garden before was to pluck pods off the slower growing plants so they 'catch up' to the faster growing ones.

In another thread someone said that capsicum annuums were more susceptible to success with 'plucking' than chinenses. However I find that my chinenses are doing quite well after plucking the first few buds off.

I look for where the branch junctures are and clean out the first two or three sets of branch junctures. It lets the plant put its energy into growing vs. fruiting. Later on when the plant is bigger you will get more fruit than if you didn't do this, but you'll have to wait longer. I think it's a good idea for plants that aren't so prolific too, or slower growing like Jamaican Scotch Bonnets.

there is a HUGE difference in the size of my plucked and unplucked chinenses. HUGE. actually looking back at my notes it was all chinenses and one lemon drop (bac) i did this with. there was more of a noticable difference in the chinenses then the lemon drop.

To carry the topic to the next level if you pick peppers when they are immature you will speed up the refruiting and with much greater numbers. After saying that I'll admit that I transplanted a few thousand peppers last weekend and although most were flowering and some had small fruits, I'll not remove fruit for a few weeks and then cash in on a small early crop. If the plants are stressed enough the flowers will drop anyhow. I've managed them this way for years and tend to benefit slightly more from having a few early fruits. Til September I'll have more peppers than I can sell unless drought or disease intervene.

I have read scientific reports showing that taking the early buds off peppers increases yields.

Call me a believer now. Tomorrow morning I am going outside to pick flowers off my C. Chinese plants. Especially in-ground ones. I'm going to give this experiment a shot. Thanks everyone!

Chris

Some great information here - Should I wait until the buds pop open to flower to clip them or should I just remove the buds? Thanks!

I have never bothered to do it with tomatoes but I don't have a problem with early buds on them. I do it regularly with peppers. Yesterday I repotted a bunch of seedlings and several about 6" high had buds on them. I pinched them all out.